


The Fundamentals of Experimentation

by Trixree



Category: One Piece
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Praise Kink, Sexuality Crisis, Voyeurism, aka the horniest thing i've ever written, is it gay if you watch your best bros have sex?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:41:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22981165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixree/pseuds/Trixree
Summary: “Two boys can have sex, too?” Luffy grins as he says it, like this is a normal conversation.“No,” Sanji hisses vehemently at the same time that Zoro says “Yup,” grinning at Sanji with way too much teeth and seriously--who smiles like that?Luffy laughs and slaps a hand down on one of Zoro’s shoulders, leaning in. “Hey! Let’s have sex, then!”
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy/Roronoa Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy/Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji, Monkey D. Luffy/Vinsmoke Sanji, Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 104
Kudos: 892





	1. Chapter 1

To celebrate smooth sailing in beautiful (if not stagnant and rather boring) Summer waters, Luffy had requested (or rather, demanded) a barbecue party. Due to the general boredom and heat-induced mania, the crew had embraced the chance (or rather, the  _ command _ ) to throw a no-holds-barred luau-style party on the deck of the Sunny. So, by the time the sun has gone down, most of them are already tipsy if not completely drunk. 

Zoro barks out a laugh, gesturing with a half-drunk bottle of rum. “They look ridiculous,” he blathers, flushed a disgusting color of red on his cheeks. 

Sanji sneers at him, sipping at a tropical cocktail.  _ Fucking brute.  _

Luffy, drunk on good food (having ignored the booze for the most-part) is sprawled half across Usopp, swaying to the melody Brook is playing on a ukulele. Zoro’s comment catches his attention, and he follows Zoro’s eye, landing on Franky and Robin.

The two are engaged in a slow-dance, made comical by Franky’s enormous shoulders and the small, man-sized hands sprouting out of his giant cyborg ones. The picture the two make is almost hysterical, if Sanji wasn’t a romantic and if he didn’t find the whole thing terribly endearing. 

Luffy chuckles out a, “That’s funny,” and resumes his vacuum-esque attempt at finishing the whole buffet. 

“It’s sweet,” Nami hiccups, looking drunk and beautiful in the light of the tiki-torches Usopp had crafted. Sanji swoons over the glowing orange cascade of her hair as it flows down her slumped shoulders. 

“It’s hilarious,” Zoro continues, smirking like the absolute bastard he is. The man is obviously tipsy, but Sanji isn’t quite sure whether or not he could be counted as well and truly  _ drunk.  _ Actually, come to think of it, Sanji isn’t sure whether he’s ever seen Zoro truly  _ hammered  _ or not. The man’s tolerance is obscene. 

Sanji’s half-way to drunk himself, which is totally forgivable, as he can take care of the dishes and the mess tomorrow morning. 

The summer evening air is sticky and heavy with sea-salty humidity. He wants a smoke, but he feels a little too overheated to truly appreciate it. He settles for tuc king the umbrella of his drink in between his lips, working at it absently.

“The great Captain Usopp,” Usopp begins to slur, “Finds it romantic.” 

Usopp, on the other hand, is completely and utterly _trashed._ Nami had engaged him in a drinking contest early on in the night and the two had competed over tropical iced cocktails packed with sugar and hard liquor. Nami had won by a landslide. Usopp has been clinging desperately to consciousness for the last hour or so. 

Zoro snorts into his drink and rolls his eyes. “Uh huh. And what does the great captain Usopp know about romance?” he jeers, reaching over Luffy to save a roll of bread from the captain’s greedy, sticky hands. 

“More’an  _ you,”  _ Usopp replies, tripping over every syllable until the  _ you  _ comes out as one long  _ “ooooo”.  _

Sanji cackles at the affronted look on the Marimo’s stupid face. 

“Shut it, shit cook,” Zoro growls, turning an ineffective glare Sanji’s way. 

“No, no,  _ please,  _ continue. I’d like to see how you defend your romantic honor,” he taunts in reply, leaning back against the lawn-chair and crossing his arms smugly. Now  _ this  _ oughta’ be  _ hilarious.  _

“Hey, I’ve slept with  _ plenty  _ of people—” Zoro begins, only to be cut off by Sanji’s hysterical, tear-jerking laughter. 

“ _ Yeah,  _ ‘slept with’! As in whatever poor girl you tricked into your bed must have done when you  _ bored her!”  _ Sanji howls, wiping tears out of the corners of his eyes. Look, he's tipsy. It's not like he's his usual level of witty. He gets the point across. _Whatever._

“Ugh, you guys are gross,” Nami bemoans just as Zoro retaliates with a curt shout. 

“Fuck you, cook! You’re probably too busy  _ bleeding out  _ to do anything. Hah—I bet you’re a  _ virgin.”  _ Zoro hisses, looking like a bristling cat. 

“Oooo,” Usopp whispers far-too-loudly, grinning like a drunk court-jester that has just witnessed some  _ shit.  _ Sanji wants to hit him. 

“I am  _ not  _ a virgin,” Sanji growls. He clenches his hands into fists in his pockets. He  _ refuses  _ to fight with the damn Marimo  _ brute  _ after such a nice night of celebration. (It's not... _entirely_ a lie. Sanji's fooled around with a couple ladies. It's not _his_ fault things never went farther.)

Zoro laughs. “Please, I’ve had sex with more women than you’ve ever even _spoken_ to.” 

“That’s not saying much,” Nami offers. Sanji takes the words like a blow to the heart. 

“Nami-swan!” He gasps, absolutely _devastated_ by her betrayal. Although, he can forgive her. She's very beautiful, after all. __

Nami shrugs, half-apologetic. 

Robin and Franky rejoin the group with content little smiles. “What’s got you all so animated?” Robin asks, smiling as she re-takes her seat beside Nami. 

“Zoro’s a slut,” Usopp slurs, blinking bleary into his empty glass.

“Oh my,” Robin says, bemused. 

“Bro, you’re gonna’ have a  _ killer  _ headache tomorrow,” Franky says, somehow the voice of reason in all of this. Usopp sways perilously in his seat, hiccuping. 

“Lies,” he declares. “Sanji! Another!” Usopp waves his empty glass in the air and levels a wobbly finger at Nami. “I haven’t lost  _ yet,”  _ he threatens. 

“You lost  _ half an hour ago,”  _ Sanji tells him, swiping the glass out of his hand, effectively cutting him off. To be fair, he probably should have cut him off exactly half-an-hour ago, but. Well. It was funny.

“Okay,” Franky stands, plucking Usopp out of his chair with an enormous hand like he’s nothing but a drunk kitten. “Time to get you to bed, bro!” Usopp squeaks indignantly. 

“We should retire, too, don’t you think, Ms. Navigator?” Robin asks. Nami blinks blearily at her and nods with an all too  _ adorable yawn,  _ in Sanji’s opinion. 

“They were getting gross anyways,” Nami announces, standing on surprisingly steady feet. 

“Goodnight, ladies!” Sanji calls after them, hearts in his eyes. He’s pleasantly surprised that the festivities lasted as long as they did. Chopper retired hours ago, having eaten himself into a sugar-coma of delicate summer desserts. Usually the graceful Robin will make her departure then, too. He was delighted that Franky and Luffy had coaxed her to stay longer before retiring for the night.

Sanji turns his not-forgotten ire back to the stupid, one-eyed idiot. “At least I know how to  _ please  _ a woman _. _ ” 

Luffy, having now completely cleared the table of all food, sits back onto his heels and blinks owlishly at the three of them that remain. 

Brook gives a gentle laugh while Zoro squawks in outrage and grinds his teeth at Sanji like a fucking  _ animal,  _ who  _ does that?  _

“I fear these bones are just too old for this conversation! Yohoho!” Brook stands with a polite goodnight. "Ah, to be young and hot-blooded!" he cries passionately before he disappears below deck.

Now there's no one to get in the way. Sanji braces for a fight. 

“I’ve pleased  _ plenty—”  _ Zoro starts, only to be cut off yet again, but this time by Luffy.

“Pleased like how? Like with food?” 

Sanji and Zoro go silent and still. They exchange a look. 

“We mean like  _ sex,  _ Luffy,” Zoro says, blunt and graceless as always.  _ Ugh,  _ Sanji thinks.  _ Brute.  _

“Yeah but like…  _ how?”  _ Luffy asks. A deep crease has formed on his brow. 

“L-luffy,” Sanji begins, shooting a confused look at Zoro, “Are you saying you don’t know what sex is?” 

Sanji is  _ reasonably  _ sure that Luffy has never had sex. It seems like he never even thinks about women at  _ all.  _ Surely someone as dense as Luffy has never  _ gone all the way  _ (especially if someone as suave and skilled as  _ Sanji  _ hasn’t ever gotten  _ there _ , either.) But not knowing what sex is at  _ all?  _ That seems a little too  _ extreme,  _ even for him. 

“Well, I know that the boy’s something goes in the girl’s  _ somewhere, _ ” Luffy says while scratching at his head absently. 

“Or in the  _ boy’s  _ somewhere,” Zoro remarks, which  _ okay, what the fuck?  _

“Okay, what the  _ fuck?”  _ Sanji says, nearly choking on his own spit. 

The absolutely downright stupid and ridiculous looking fucking Marimo bastard turns a  _ cocky fucking grin  _ to Sanji. “You heard me, cook.” 

“Two boys can have sex, too?” Luffy grins as he says it, like this is a normal conversation. 

_ “No,”  _ Sanji hisses vehemently. In his mind’s eye, he is haunted by the Okama. 

“Yup,” Zoro grins at Sanji with  _ way too much teeth,  _ seriously, who  _ smiles like that?  _

Luffy laughs and slaps a hand down on one of Zoro’s shoulders, leaning in. “Hey! Let’s have sex, then!” 

The night goes eerily silent. Somewhere out in the ocean, Sanji’s soul has fled and is drowning itself. Zoro looks like he’s swallowed something particularly sour. Sanji has never sobered up so fast in his _life._ Zoro looks like he might have gone brain-dead, like instead of sobering at the words, he instead lost all capacity for higher function. Luffy is grinning. He starts to shake Zoro by the grip on his shoulder. 

“Hey, Zoro… C’mon, let’s have sex!” 

_ “NO!”  _ Zoro shouts. He shrugs Luffy’s hand off with a growl. 

“Why not?” he pouts. He shoots a  _ “help me out here”  _ look to Sanji, who promptly swallows his tongue and shakes his head  _ no  _ because all words have failed him and he is  _ not  _ about to help Luffy have  _ gay sex  _ with  _ Zoro.  _ “Zoro…” Luffy whines, flopping boneless across Zoro’s lap, all rubber limbs and frowns. 

“Luffy,” Zoro growls, shoving ineffectually at him, “Get  _ off!  _ We are  _ not  _ having sex!” 

“Why not!?” Luffy shouts in return. 

“ _ Because!”  _ Zoro splutters, also looking to Sanji with a very clear “ _ help me out here”  _ look on his face. 

“Luffy—” Sanji begins, his voice coming out high and broken like he’s swallowed helium. “Men shouldn’t…  _ do that  _ with other men—” 

“Wait--are you fucking kidding me?!” Zoro erupts. He looks really fucking  _ pissed  _ which is  _ dumb  _ because Sanji was just trying to  _ help,  _ for fuck’s sake. “Seriously?! That’s absolute bullshit!” Zoro shouts. 

“Okay, so let’s do it then!” Luffy interjects.

Zoro plants one hand flat on Luffy’s face and shoves him away. He leans over the table, getting in Sanji’s face to growl, “I knew you were  _ stupid,  _ Cook, but not  _ that stupid.”  _

“Well it’s true! It’s not  _ natural!”  _ Sanji squeaks, throwing his hands up in a rage. He can feel himself  _ blushing,  _ goddamn it. (In his mind’s eye, Iva-san clicks his tongue in disappointment.  _ Fuck off,  _ Sanji thinks, furious at himself for even entertaining thoughts of  _ that place  _ at a time like  _ this _ .) 

_"Bu_ _ llshit!”  _ Zoro shouts, well and truly furious. He’s poised like he wants to throttle Sanji. 

“Why are you so angry?” Sanji yells right back. “You’re acting like you’re—” 

“Like I’m what?  _ Gay?”  _ Zoro practically spits the word into his face and Sanji can’t help it, he recoils. Zoro gives a curt, abrupt laugh. “What the fuck if I  _ am,  _ Sanji? Huh?”

And  _ oh,  _ for Zoro to use his name  _ now,  _ of all times? No "shit cook" or "ero cook" or "stupid curly-brow", but his _name?_ Throwing it in his face like this? Sanji bristles, getting well and truly upset. He ignores the poignant way it stings down his spine. 

“Are you?” He manages, and it doesn’t sound half as confrontational as he intended it to be. The question lingers in the air, heavy. 

“Would you think it’s wrong if I was?” And  _ oh  _ how the words _burn_ and _blister_ between them. The question hits like a slap against Sanji’s skin. “Would you think I was  _ unnatural?  _ Or  _ sick?”  _

“I— _ no— _ yes? I—” Sanji stutters, reeling from the way the words hit him like a punch to the gut. 

“Fucking unbelievable,” Zoro mutters. 

“It can’t be—It—” Sanji takes a deep breath, gathering himself. “It can’t be  _ anything  _ like the  _ real thing,  _ right? With two men?” He can hardly  _ get the words out.  _ His face must be blushing  _ crimson  _ at this point. “I mean, how could it?” 

Zoro scoffs. “How would it be any different?” 

“Zoro! It’s,” Sanji makes a few incomprehensible gestures in the air before dropping his hands in frustration. “I don’t know! It just can’t be, alright?” 

“No, you  _ don’t know,” _ Zoro growls. He moves to stand when Luffy’s hand claps down on his shoulder and stills him mid-movement. 

“Zoro,” Luffy says, voice serious and firm. “Sex is supposed to feel good, right?” 

Zoro blinks once, slowly. He eases back down into his seat. “Yeah,” he says.

“And when two men do it—it feels good?” Luffy asks. 

“Yeah, it— _ yeah. _ ” 

Luffy smiles. “Okay! Let’s do it, then! I want to!” His head turns and suddenly Luffy is  _ looking  _ at Sanji, all smiles and eyes that are suddenly too smart, too  _ knowing.  _ “And then Sanji can watch and see if it’s the same and then he’ll know, right?” 

Sanji makes a sound not unlike a squeak (but definitely much more manly than that, if you ask him.) 

Luffy looks back at Zoro and Zoro must see something  _ there,  _ something in his Captain’s eyes, because he’s suddenly smiling, too and  _ nodding.  _

_ No.  _

“Okay,” Zoro says, rising. "If you're _sure_ you want to."

"Yep!" Luffy leaps to his feet, grinning ear to ear. Sanji stays frozen, glued to his chair.  _ Absolutely not.  _

“Sanji?” Luffy asks. 

_ Absolutely not.  _

“What, Cook? Afraid you’ll be wrong?” Zoro taunts and  _ oh,  _ there’s a  real  _ challenge  _ there, in his eye. It’s like meeting his gaze across the battlefield and it hits Sanji low in the pit of his stomach. 

Sanji stands. “Fine,” he spits. “Just don’t fucking touch me, got it? Or else I'll cut your fucking balls off.”

Zoro leads them to the med-bay. 

* * *

Chopper’s med-bay consists of a single cot against the wall, a desk, a chair, and some shelving and cabinets. Everything is neat and clean as Zoro steps inside, Luffy and Sanji on his heels. The bed is made up with crisp white sheets but no pillow. It is for patients, after all. But, well. It works in terms of privacy and the others aren’t liable to hear anything from below deck.

“Lock the door,” Zoro says over his shoulder. Sanji jumps at being directly addressed, but does it anyways. Luffy bounces on his heels, watching Zoro plainly. Zoro can tell that he wants to touch, but instead he’s waiting for Zoro to take the lead.  _ Better get the stupid fucking cook settled, then.  _

Zoro grabs the chair and sets it against the opposite wall, facing the bed. He looks pointedly at Sanji, who stands motionless and unreadable by the door. “Sit,” Zoro barks. He turns around, attention back to Luffy, leaving it at that. It’s up to the cook whether or not he takes the chair. He might refuse to sit just on principle. 

Luffy grins at him, looking all the much shorter in this moment, all three of them packed into the small room. He snickers and then puckers his lips ridiculously, looking like a fish in a straw-hat. Helplessly, Zoro laughs. Luffy starts laughing too, which is why he doesn’t expect it when Zoro cups his head in his hands and steps in, catching his open lips between his own. 

Zoro feels Luffy jolt with surprise. Carefully, he mouths at Luffy’s parted lips, testing them with his own. His mouth is surprisingly soft and warm and his breath only tastes faintly of the meal they had all shared. After a moment, Luffy recovers and leans into the touch slightly, making a small curious noise. 

With that as permission, Zoro moves. He angles Luffy’s head with his hands, tipping it up and back while he steps in just a little bit closer, one of his feet between Luffy’s where they stand. Zoro licks his way into Luffy’s mouth, catching the surprised little sound he makes. Like an electric shock, Luffy jolts at the sensation, and then he’s pushing  _ closer,  _ swaying up into Zoro’s grip and mouth like he’s thirsty for it. 

Somewhere in the room, Sanji gasps. 

_ Good. Watch me,  _ Zoro thinks, and he slides a hand down to Luffy’s waist, using the leverage to pull him closer. 

They must kiss for  _ ages.  _

Luffy is startlingly responsive, taking and giving in turn with his eager lips and clumsy (but enthusiastic) tongue. He rocks up onto his toes to push into Zoro’s mouth and sways with each push and pull and suck and nibble, like a restless ocean tide. Zoro is so caught up in the scent and sensation of him that he’s utterly unprepared for it when Luffy breaks the kiss suddenly and bounces out of his space. 

Zoro’s lips feel bruised and  _ alive  _ in the absence. 

Luffy is flushed and bright-eyed, with lips that are a deep shade of red, having been nibbled and sucked and coaxed into it. 

“One second,” Luffy says, grinning, and he takes off his hat and goes to hand it to  _ Sanji.  _ “Here,” Luffy says and  _ oh god,  _ Zoro looks at him. 

There’s an unlit cigarette clenched between Sanji’s teeth with apparent strain. He’s sitting in the chair, legs crossed one over the other, and his cheeks are a stubborn, undeniable  _ pink.  _ His visible eye is fixed on Zoro’s face.  _ Determination.  _ Zoro swallows.  _ He’s gonna see this through.  _

Sanji takes the hat and rests it on one knee. 

Luffy rushes back over, planting sloppy, eager kisses across Zoro’s face, winding his arms around his neck. “Kissing is  _ great,”  _ Luffy announces. He steals up Zoro’s lips again. 

Arousal is steadily building in Zoro’s gut, Luffy’s eager lips and hands stoking the fire higher and higher. He breaks away for a moment to speak low into Luffy’s ear, “Ready for more?” Luffy nods. 

Zoro resumes the kiss and leans down just enough to get his hands under Luffy’s thighs. He gasps a little when Zoro  _ lifts,  _ hoisting him into his arms and walking backwards until his knees hit the cot. Now oriented to the bed, Zoro turns and drops Luffy onto his back, following him down and sliding between his spread legs. 

He thinks he hears Sanji  _ curse,  _ but he’s a little preoccupied, sliding a hand underneath the fabric of Luffy’s shirt just to touch his skin. He’s warm and shivers at the contact, back arching just a bit and lips pursed and open. 

He looks  _ debauched,  _ but not  _ enough,  _ so Zoro lowers himself until they’re pressed chest to chest, but more importantly, groin to groin. 

Zoro swallows his gasp at the first tentative roll of his hips against Luffy’s half-hard dick. Their lips part with a slick kiss as Luffy separates to gasp, “ _ Oh,”  _ against Zoro’s cheek. One of his hands spasms around Zoro’s neck. 

He does it again and Luffy’s exhaled breath leaves him in a shudder. 

“That’s—” Luffy hooks a leg around Zoro’s waist, instinctively seeking the angle he wants, and at Zoro’s next downward grind, Luffy outright  _ moans.  _

“Fuck,” Zoro growls, working a hand between their bodies. If this is Luffy’s first time (and it probably is) Zoro is  _ determined  _ to make it so fucking good for him that there won’t  _ be  _ any room for Sanji to complain about what’s  _ unnatural  _ or not. 

Reminded of the cook, Zoro turns his head so that he can see Sanji across the room at his first touch to Luffy’s dick. He wants to watch, wants to  _ see  _ Sanji  _ see  _ how wrong he is. 

_ Watch,  _ he thinks, almost vicious with it, as he takes Luffy in hand. 

Two things happen at once. First, Luffy sighs and shivers into his touch, visibly and tangibly melting against Zoro’s grip. Second, Sanji bites clean through the unlit cigarette that was dangling from his lips. The material of the strawhat crinkles against his hands. Zoro strokes Luffy again and finds it too dry between them to really get the motion he wants. The force of his gaze on Sanji must finally be enough to wrench the cook’s attention towards him, because Sanji’s eyes snap to Zoro’s face. 

_ Watch,  _ he thinks, and slowly leans back on his heels. Holding Sanji’s (terrified, surprised, flushed) expression, Zoro spits into his hand, hot and filthy. 

“That’s disgusting,” Sanji whispers, sounding strangled. 

Zoro smiles and slides his wet hand over Luffy’s cock. Startled, Luffy jack-knifes off of the bed, nearly kicking Zoro in the face, and shouts,  _ “Zoro!”  _

Concerned, Zoro swoops low over him again, letting Luffy wind his arms around his shoulders and tug him close. 

“This okay?” Zoro murmurs to him, starting to work him with his hand slowly. Luffy shivers as Zoro twists his hand around the head of his dick. 

“Uh huh,” Luffy replies, blinking hazy with pleasure between them and straining for another kiss. Zoro answers with his lips. “Feels… ‘S good, different with someone else’s hand,” Luffy says, sounding both whiny and somehow still eager for more. He’s humping up into Zoro’s hand, desperate little hitches of his hips in an inconsistent rhythm. 

Zoro adjusts slightly so that he’s lying at Luffy’s side with his back to the wall. This way, he gets to watch them both, and Sanji can get a full view. He watches Sanji’s breath stutter out of him as the realization dawns.

He spits into his hand one more time and returns it to Luffy’s straining cock ( _ he’s pretty,  _ Zoro decides, and he’s struck with a vicious possessiveness, glad he said  _ yes)  _ but he holds him still until Luffy starts to grumble. 

Zoro presses kisses into the length of his neck (and  _ god,  _ he smells like the sea itself, sun-warm and lazy and salty) and says, “Go ahead. Fuck my fist.” 

“Fuck,” Sanji curses just as Luffy grins and starts to move. 

Sanji’s visible eye is  _ wide,  _ his blush  _ impossible  _ to hide in the bright room. He’s leaning ever so slightly forward, looking like he’s torn between watching Luffy fuck up into Zoro’s hand or watching literally  _ anything else.  _

It doesn’t take long until Luffy spills into his hand with a low grunt and a sigh. There’s… not an insignificant amount of cum. 

“Good?” Zoro asks. 

“Yeah,” Luffy answers, swiping a kiss and relaxing back onto the bed. 

“How long till you can go again?” 

“ _ What,”  _ Sanji hisses. 

“Uh—again? Dunno,” Luffy says, making a thoughtful face. 

“You thought we were  _ done,  _ Cook?” Zoro tugs Luffy’s shorts all the way off with a helpful little wiggle of Luffy’s hips. He rests his hand on the inside of Luffy’s thigh, noting that the sight of his larger hand on Luffy’s smaller leg is  _ pretty fucking hot.  _ “All this big talk about giving a partner pleasure and you thought we were gonna stop with one orgasm?” 

Luffy starts to snicker. “You too, Zoro.” He pulls at his shirt.

“Alright, alright,” he acquiesces, jumping off the bed for long enough to ditch his clothes and search for what he’ll need next. 

“God, a little warning?” Sanji curses, shielding his eyes as Zoro stands, completely naked, rummaging through one of Chopper’s cabinets. 

“Prude.” 

On the bed, propped up on his elbows, Luffy outright laughs. The sight of him has Zoro’s heart skipping hard in his chest. Luffy’s sex flushed and scarred chest is on full display, his hair sweaty and messed up, eyes bright and content, legs parted lazily and cock limp against his abdomen, lean and thick with muscle and streaked with his own cum. 

“Fuck,” Zoro breathes, enraptured by the sight of him. 

He’s fucked around a bit in his time, from one-night stands to more permanent, fuckbuddy arrangements with Johnny and Yosaku, but he’s never  _ once  _ touched a crewmate, unwilling to complicate any of those relationships. Although, god help him, he has _wanted_. And hell, he's _looked._ How could he not? But  _ shit,  _ all of his self-imposed rules about fucking around with crewmates are rapidly dissolving, first in the face of Sanji’s competition and disgust and now in the face of the beautiful, debauched picture Luffy makes. 

He crawls back between his thighs, kissing from Luffy’s pecs and the wrinkled, ugly scar-tissue there down to where his abs begin, catching up the rapidly-cooling cum on his tongue as he goes. 

Luffy gasps and his hands paw at Zoro’s short hair. “Tickles,” he mutters, scratching at Zoro’s scalp. 

“That’s—” Sanji’s voice interrupts the moment. He's basically croaking around the words. “That cannot taste—” he can’t seem to finish the thought. 

Luffy makes a contented little hum. “Feels good,” he says, and judging by the sound Sanji makes, Luffy must have made an exceptionally  _ good  _ face as Zoro licks across his soft cock. “Ah—” Luffy gasps, legs twitching at Zoro’s sides. 

“Alright?” he asks. God, Zoro’s own erection is fucking  _ killing him,  _ trapped between the bed and his own abdomen as it is. It takes all of his considerable self-control not to grind against the sheets until he comes. 

“Uh huh.” Luffy pets lazily across his head. 

“Gonna try something. Tell me if you want me to stop,” he warns, already slicking his fingers with the vaseline he found among Chopper’s supplies. 

“‘Kay.” His cock is starting to harden again, growing gradually firmer against Zoro’s lips and tongue by the minute. 

Zoro takes a second to rearrange himself, getting comfortable towards the foot of the cot. He spares a glace towards Sanji, still seated in that stupid chair.  _ Good. You better be watching.  _ And then he swallows Luffy down and gives those first, tentative touches to his hole. 

* * *

“Zoro—” Luffy startles, staring frozen up at the ceiling.

The impossible velvet heat of his mouth disappears, leaving Luffy bereft. He feels his dick twitch. It almost  _ hurts  _ with sensitivity, but it  _ doesn’t,  _ or, if it does, it hurts  _ good.  _

_ Pleasure,  _ he thinks, turning the word over lazily in his mind. 

“Okay?” Zoro asks. His face is… it makes Luffy’s throat dry. Zoro’s lips are dark and  _ wet  _ with spit and he wants his mouth back  _ badly,  _ but he wants to make him feel good, too. Zoro’s fingers, hot and slick with  _ something,  _ brush against Luffy’s asshole again, pressing just a little bit and it’s… not awful. Just weird. 

“Uh huh,” Luffy answers the silent question,  _ can I?  _

With a single slow push, Zoro slides a slippery finger up  _ inside of him  _ and—”Oh,” Luffy breathes around a sound as Zoro swallows him back down again, too. The insides of Luffy’s thighs burn with sensation. His whole body tingles with over-sensitivity. He feels like a  _ bruise  _ but like a  _ live wire,  _ too, like he’s in gear-second and his blood is rushing super-heated through his veins. 

Zoro’s finger is big but Luffy is stretchy there, too. It doesn’t take long before Zoro pulls off of his cock again and husks, “God, Luffy, here too?” and of course, Zoro was thinking the same thing he was, so Luffy just has to laugh. 

“Yeah, everywhere,” he says, feeling Zoro stroke around inside of him and  _ god,  _ isn’t that a feeling? Zoro smiles from between his legs. Luffy’s not quite fully hard yet, but he’s getting there. It feels… okay but not great, even as he moves his finger inside of him, so Luffy starts to squirm. “Feels weird,” he says. 

“I’m—hold on,” Zoro mumbles, shifting his arm around. The angle moves his mouth away from Luffy’s dick, which isn't awesome, but the angle suddenly feels different, like this. Zoro looks deep in concentration. His free hand flexes intermittently around Luffy’s thigh, grip firm. Luffy wonders if Zoro knows he’s doing it. 

“Your bed partner shouldn’t feel  _ weird,  _ Marimo,” Sanji says, quietly but loud enough. Luffy turns to look at him. 

Sanji is recoiled into the chair, feet braced flat on the floor, looking uncomfortable but flushed from his face down his neck. He catches Luffy’s eyes and quickly looks away, embarrassed. 

Quick to reassure, Luffy says, “It’s not ba— _ ah!”  _

Lighting rockets up his spine, his dick twitches and surges to full-hardness, and Luffy bites his tongue on a shout. 

“Got it,” Zoro grins, triumphant, crooking his finger  _ again  _ and— 

_ “Oh, oh my god—”  _ Luffy slaps a hand over his mouth because he thinks he’s  _ drooling,  _ how does that feel…? It’s like a live connection straight to his  _ balls  _ and it’s like liquid  _ fire.  _

“What?” Sanji sounds concerned and also like he’s having a hard time breathing. He’s sat up in his chair, like he was jolted out of his sulk and now he’s ready to leap to his feet if necessary, eyes fixed on Zoro. “What are—” he looks to Luffy, “are you—?” 

But then Zoro strokes over that spot  _ again  _ just as he slides  _ another finger  _ inside and Luffy can only arch his back, pushing into the sensation and blurt,  _ “It’s good!"  _ deliriously around his own hand. 

Zoro backs off of the spot and starts to  _ stretch _ around his rim with careful fingers. Luffy’s limbs tingle. His dick throbs. His balls  _ ache.  _ Zoro licks across Luffy’s cock and finally takes it back into his mouth, making Luffy see  _ stars  _ as he starts to  _ twist  _ his fingers in tandem. 

“It’s—good?” Sanji croaks. Luffy lets his head roll to the side so that he can see him. 

He’s every bit that shy, overconfident stranger Luffy met those few years ago on the floating restaurant. His cheeks are red, his face is scrunched up, and he’s unbuttoned the first few buttons of his ugly Hawaiian shirt. One of his hands grips the brim of Luffy’s hat while the other clutches at his own shoulder. His mouth is open in bafflement as he meets Luffy’s stare. 

“‘S really good,” Luffy says, hands itching to touch—whether they want to touch Zoro or Sanji, he can’t really tell. Zoro hits the spot again while also doing  _ something magical  _ with his tongue and Luffy  _ moans.  _

“ _ Fuck,”  _ Sanji swears vehemently. 

All of the sensation—Luffy either feels like he’s going to cry or come again and he can’t—he  _ can’t— _

“ _ Zoro,”  _ he whines, tugging hard on his hair. 

Zoro comes up  _ immediately,  _ almost with  _ shocking speed.  _ His fingers go completely still and he presses a hot,  _ needy  _ kiss against Luffy’s hip. Zoro’s hand is shaking where it’s gripping his thigh. Luffy thinks he might get  _ bruises.  _

“Alright?” he asks, because Zoro is his first-mate and of course he does, although he should probably know the answer already. 

“Yeah,” he pants, and when did he start breathing so heavily? 

Slowly, Zoro scissors his fingers apart, testing the limits of Luffy’s ability to stretch  _ down there  _ and the feeling is indescribable—like molten lava, like fire on his insides. Luffy moans again, feeling like he needs  _ something  _ and not knowing what. 

How did he not know that sex was  _ this? _

A third finger presses at his rim. 

“We can stop,” Zoro offers, voice low and filled with intent. 

“No,” Luffy says immediately. He doesn’t know what he wants but it certainly isn’t that. 

“Okay,” Zoro breathes and Luffy breathes and across the room, Sanji breathes, and Zoro slides a third finger inside. 

The stretch  _ burns  _ and Luffy kinda  _ likes it.  _

He moans deep in his chest as Zoro starts to push and pull in and out. His hands spasm uselessly over Zoro’s shoulders.

“Feels…” Luffy sighs, leaning back into the feeling and catching Zoro’s little gasp as he tries to clench around the fingers, chasing sensation he can’t name. “Feels…” 

“Yeah?” Zoro murmurs into the skin of his thigh. “Tell him.” His voice is  _ dark  _ and  _ weighty.  _

“Shit,” Sanji swears on a ragged exhale. Luffy’s mouth drops open as he stares at him, and he then  _ does.  _

“Feels like it burns but it doesn’t and—” Zoro ghosts against that spot again and Luffy sees stars. “Feel it in my—”  _ dick, in my balls, in my gut, in my throat _ . “Zoro… please,” Luffy starts to say and then can’t seem to stop, “Please, please, wanna’... I wanna… please… Zoro, Zoro, Zoro, I want—I don’t—” 

Zoro  _ growls.  _ It’s a sound like nothing Luffy’s ever heard him make and it sends shivers through every muscle he has. Roughly, Zoro pulls out, and the absence of him is  _ overwhelming,  _ even as one of his hands is touching him  _ everywhere— _ the other is— 

Zoro is so  hard that  his dick looks  _ purple.  _ With his free hand, Zoro’s jerking himself furiously, jaw clenched and single eye focused and dark on Luffy’s face. Luffy watches Zoro pinch the base of his dick and make a brutal, punched-out sound, feels the emptiness inside him and it’s so clear, suddenly, what he wants. 

“Zoro!” He shouts, surging up onto his elbows and knees to  _ kiss him, touch  _ him,  _ anything _ — 

Zoro catches him, because of  _ course he does,  _ and his dick slaps hard against his abdomen. Luffy feels it press between them as he scrambles nearly into his  _ lap,  _ mouths meeting desperately.

“You’re so—” Zoro gasps and then  _ bites  _ him, right on the lip, and Luffy  _ aches.  _

“Zoro, Zoro, please, Zoro—” he’s babbling, he’s  _ flying,  _ he’s never felt like this before. 

“Shh—I got you, I got you—” Zoro gets his hands under Luffy’s thighs and he starts to  _ move  _ him and  _ oh,  _ he’s strong, he’s really, really strong. “Luffy, turn—turn around—c’mon, let him see you,” Zoro whispers, hot and undeniable. 

And then Luffy’s there, perched over his lap on the bed, his back to Zoro’s chest, Zoro’s arm like an iron  _ bar  _ across his chest, rubbing harsh over his perked nipples with every inhale. Zoro’s  _ dick  _ rubs against him, against his  _ cheeks  _ and then brushes that  _ place  _ and Luffy— 

“Please, Zoro, please, I want—” 

Luffy clutches at that single arm, eyes clenched shut out of the sheer overwhelming  _ feeling _ . 

“Okay—I’m gonna,” Zoro starts and breaks off with a grunt. Luffy can feel the head of him, impossibly wide, pressed against his hole and the sensation of it is like standing at a cliff’s edge. “Tell me if—if you need—”

Luffy forces himself  _ down,  _ dropping all of his weight at once. It  _ burns— _ so much wider than Zoro’s fingers—and the stretch is  _ unbearable  _ until suddenly it isn’t and the head of Zoro’s dick pops inside of him with a wet sound. Zoro bites at the juncture between Luffy’s neck and shoulder. A moan vibrates out across his skin. Luffy continues to sink  _ down,  _ and each inch lights him up like fire until it stops. Luffy gasps and his thighs shake. 

“It’s in, it’s—” he babbles. Zoro hums against his neck and snakes his free hand around them, gets it to Luffy’s dick and  _ oh my god, this is just as good as meat.  _

“Open your eyes,” Zoro husks out. His voice sounds  _ insane.  _ “Open them. Luffy, look.” 

He does. 

Sanji is seated at the very edge of the chair, one hand gripping the arm rest so hard it’s literally splintering under his hand. He’s got his other hand shoved in his mouth, biting down on his fist like it will stop the brutal sound of his panting--like Luffy would be able to drown it out under his own sounds, if Sanji could muffle himself enough. His visible eye is blown so wide and so dark, pupils massive from even across the room. His pants look tight enough to be painful around the distinct outline of his hard cock. 

“ _ Sanji,”  _ Luffy moans. 

“ _ Fuck,”  _ he breaks, swearing around his hand, thighs flexing and squirming, just a little, in the chair. His eye flickers closed for a moment like he can’t  _ bear  _ to see. 

“Yeah, fuck, Luffy—tell him,” Zoro grunts, shifting his hips just enough to let Luffy  _ feel  _ it, let him  _ feel  _ how closely Zoro’s pressed to that fucking  _ spot.  _ “Tell him how it feels.” Zoro crushes him tight against his chest and then  _ oh, oh, oh,  _ lifts Luffy like that and settles him back down again, spearing him open. 

* * *

Luffy throws his head back and  _ keens.  _

_ Oh my god, oh my fucking god this is—  _

Sanji has never been harder in his entire fucking  _ life.  _ His zipper is probably leaving  _ indents  _ in his cock, he’s so fucking hard. The picture they make— Zoro and Luffy, together like that—is  _ insane,  _ it’s fucking  _ filthy  _ and Sanji can’t look away, can’t deny how utterly breathless—how fucking  _ hard  _ it makes him. 

“So good, so, so full,  _ Zoro—”  _ Luffy whines as Zoro lifts him back up, practically effortlessly, and Sanji watches the impossible fucking length of him slide back out from Luffy’s  _ ass.  _

Their eyes meet from over Luffy’s shoulder and it’s  _ over— _ it’s all fucking  _ over for him  _ because the face Zoro is making? 

He looks downright fucking  _ smug.  _

“Are you looking, Cook?” Zoro says, voice in a register so low that it’s a miracle Sanji can understand him. Sanji watches, frozen, as Zoro lowers Luffy so fucking slowly back down onto his dick. It’s  _ disgusting.  _ It’s the  _ hottest thing he’s ever seen,  _ second only to Zoro l icking Luffy’s cum up off of his chest with his mouth.  “Are you watching?” Zoro repeats. Luffy is fully seated, eyes rolled up back in his head, mouth open and fucking  _ drooling.  _

“Y-yeah,” Sanji whispers. His dick fucking  _ aches.  _ He feels fucking  _ wet  _ from how much precum he’s making in his pants. It’s horrible. It's shameful. It’s degrading. It's contrary to _everything_ he knows.

It’s  _ emasculating _ . 

He wants to touch himself so, so badly. 

“Yeah?” With a grunt, Zoro truly  thrusts  for the first time. Luffy  _ screams,  _ short and abrupt, head lolling back onto Zoro’s shoulder limply. 

“Zoro,  _ Zoro,  _ again,  _ Zoro, please,”  _ Luffy babbles, voice rising higher and higher. 

Zoro does it again. And again. The sounds they make together are  _ obscene.  _

“Tell me— _ unff— _ tell me it’s unnatural again,” Zoro grunts between thrusts, his awful, brutishly large thighs flexing with each powerful move. “Tell me— _ hnn— _ how wrong it is?” He jeers, managing to sound like a  _ prick  _ even while pistoning in and out of Luffy like a fucking  _ monster.  _

“It’s—” Sanji gasps.  _ The hottest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s disgusting. It’s perfect. It’s so fucking hot I think I’m going to die.  _

“ _ Sanji,”  _ Luffy cries, moaning in sharp punctuation to each thrust. 

_I want it to be me,_ Sanji thinks abruptly, and his brain skitters to a painful halt around the thought. He can't, for the life of him, figure out if he'd rather be Zoro or Luffy in this scenario, and the knowledge that in this moment, he'd be okay with _either_ is _insane._

Sanji  _ can’t,  _ it’s too much, he feels like he’s going to  _ explode.  _ He clenches his eyes shut, gasping and hunched over just how fucking  _ hard  _ he is. Both of his hands grip the chair and he feels the wood  _ creak  _ under his hands. 

“Look at him,” Zoro demands. 

Sanji’s eyes snap open.  _ It’s too much.  _

“There you go,” Zoro says, sounding so fucking _pleased with him,_ and Sanji wants to  _ die  _ because his  _ voice is just— _

Zoro smiles and says, “Good, Sanji. Just like that” and Sanji  _ breaks.  _

His hands rip at his pants, violent in his urgency—he needs to touch himself  _ now  _ or he’s going to fucking  _ die—  _

_ Good, Sanji _ like a broken record in his head, stuck on _good, good, good._

“Yeah, just— _ mm— _ ” Zoro breaks off to moan, long and low and sustained, slowing his pace a bit. Luffy whines at the loss. “Just like that, get yourself out—oh,  _ fuck,  _ Sanji,” he gets out on an agonized exhale. “You’re so…” 

Sanji is so slick from his own precum that it’s visible through his grey breifs, a dark damp patch through the fabric. It's _horrible. Embarrassing. Shameful._ He's wet like a _girl._

The first touch of his hand to his skin has him nearly shaking. It’s never felt like this to touch himself before. Never.  _ Fuck.  _

“Sanji,” Luffy says, whip-crack loud. Then, there’s the familiar sound of his arm  _ extending  _ and  _ oh no, oh fuck—  _

Luffy’s stretched arm grabs hold of the chair and  _ tugs,  _ pulling Sanji swiftly—still seated—across the floor with a sustained  _ screech  _ of wood on wood. 

He’s close enough to feel Luffy’s breath on his face, knees pressed flush against the edge of the bed. 

“Luffy,” Zoro begins, almost warning.

But it doesn’t matter,  _ it doesn’t fucking matter,  _ because Luffy is gathering Sanji’s face up in his warm, sweaty hands and pulling him up to  _ kiss.  _

_ I’m kissing a man,  _ Sanji thinks, half-high on it, as Luffy forcefully pushes his tongue into Sanji’s mouth and his hand stutters around his own cock. 

"Oh, fuck, that's--" Zoro groans low in his throat. Then Luffy jolts forward, knocking their noses together painfully, crying out as Zoro starts to truly fucking  _ pound him.  _

_ “Oh, oh, oh,”  _ Luffy hiccups into Sanji’s mouth, jolting him with every single thrust. Sanji can fucking  _ feel Zoro jacking Luffy off  _ in time to his thrusts, his arm moving so fucking fast between them. The back of his hand is brushing against Sanji with every moment. It's _incandescently hot._

“Sanji, Zoro,” Luffy gasps, dropping his head forward to rest on Sanji’s shoulder. His breath fans out hot across Sanji’s neck and it’s  _ killing him,  _ it’s  _ burning him alive—  _

“Sanji,” Zoro says, sudden like gunfire in close quarters. 

His eyes snap up to meet him and oh— 

_ Zoro is the most beautiful thing he’s ever fucking seen.  _

Sanji  _ yelps  _ when he comes, like the sound was kicked out of him, and it might as well have been. Luffy has a hand in his hair and is babbling,  _ yes, yes, yes,  _ over and over again into the open curve of his neck, and Sanji can feel the exact moment Zoro comes because he stills, forcing Luffy back down onto his cock. He grunts like the fucking barbarian he is and Sanji is _sure_ he whites out for a moment. He can feel it, Zoro's hand is moving even  _ faster— _ Sanji can feel his knuckles brush against him as he moves—and Luffy comes  _ again.  _

Luffy  _ screams,  _ shaking to  _ pieces,  _ and Sanji is fucking helpless to stop himself from winding his arms around him and _holding on_ while Luffy shivers through his climax _ ,  _ shooting off against him, practically rubbing it into Sanji’s shirt. 

He holds him tight through the whole thing, panting into his hair. Zoro slumps on top of Luffy, knocking his chin into Sanji’s hands and pushing Luffy even more tightly against him. The chair scoots back an inch against the ground with an audible screech. 

Sanji doesn’t want to open his eyes. Doesn’t want to  _ look.  _ The air  _ reeks  _ like sex and sweat and the taste of Luffy’s spit lingers heavy on his tongue. 

Inexplicably, Luffy starts to giggle. Then Zoro starts, too, huffing out little breathless chuckles that skirt across Sanji’s hair. 

“That was...” Luffy manages between peels of laughter, “so amazing. Oh my  _ god,  _ Zoro.  _ Again, _ ” he demands, and Sanji can feel him wiggle his hips, he’s pressed so close. 

“Fuck no,” Zoro gasps, outright laughing. “I can’t even feel my legs right now,  _ fuck.  _ You’re  _ heavy,”  _ he groans. 

“I want to again, okay? Sanji too,” Luffy declares, and everything lighthearted dies on Sanji’s tongue. His heart starts to  _ race.  _

“Yeah, okay,” Zoro says. 

_ No, no, no,  _ Sanji thinks, nearly hyperventilating.  _ He can’t—he’s not—  _

“Sanji?” Luffy asks, feeling him pull away, start to pull back because he  _ can’t,  _ he just  _ cannot—  _

“I can’t—” Sanji erupts in a burst of sound and movement, nearly toppling the chair over in his haste to escape. He stands, panting and disheveled, nearly shaking in the middle of the room, feeling more out of control than he’s ever felt in his whole life. Terror freezes his lungs and he clutches at his abdomen, cramping with the lack of air. “I’m not—I’m not  _ like that,  _ I…” 

Embarrassingly, he thinks he’s about to fucking  _ cry.  _

_ What the fuck did I just do? _

“I’m  _ not,”  _ Sanji swears, but he can't finish, denial heavy on his tongue, clogging up his lungs. He's fumbling to do up his pants with shaking, unsteady hands.  _ Hands that touched them. Hands that didn’t protest when he kissed you. Hands that held on when he orgasmed in your arms.  _

He makes some sound, high and desperate in his throat, feeling panic close in like a vice. 

_ It was so good.  _

“Sanji!” Luffy lurches off of Zoro’s lap, making for him but he winces and falls and Zoro barely catches him in time. 

“Luffy, let him—” Zoro tries, and Sanji cannot even begin to parse through how Zoro sounds right now.

“Wait—” Luffy sounds desperate, but Sanji’s already out the door. 

Sanji’s feet hit the deck and he runs for cover.  _ It can’t be the same,  _ he remembers saying just an hour or so earlier, but he was so fucking  _ wrong.  _

It was a thousand times  _ better.  _

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sanji,” Luffy draws out his name, playful on every syllable. “I thought you said it was complicated.” 
> 
> "It is."
> 
> Luffy says, forcefully, “So uncomplicate it.” 
> 
> Sanji grates out a strained laugh. “Is that an order?” he attempts to joke. It falls flat and dies in the space between the three of them. 
> 
> “Do you want it to be?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might have noticed this is now three chapters. This is because this fic is now thirty-five pages and counting. Please mind the new tags as well!
> 
> Anyways, with all that's happening in the world right now I wish you all good health and love! We're in this together, folks. So, we might as well be horny on main together.

After the panic has ebbed, Sanji does what any self-respecting man would do in his position: take a really, _really_ long shower. 

It’s the longest shower of his entire life. The water has long since run cold, but he still can’t bring himself to get out. Sitting on the floor, head tilted up to the spray, water drumming a gentle pattern against the porcelain and his skin, he can almost convince himself that certain events  _ never happened.  _

_ I’m not gay.  _ Sanji turns over his own hands, pruney from time in the water. He stares down at them and feels like he’s seeing through them.  _ I’m not gay. I’m not.  _

He knocks his head gently against the wall.  _ I like women.  _

Sanji pictures Nami in her bikini and denim cutoffs. He pictures Robin in her favorite dress, hugging her in all the right places and leaving just enough to the imagination. He pictures the freckles that dot across the exposed skin of Nami’s bare shoulders, her cheeks, the outer sides of her arms. He recalls the familiar scent of Robin’s favorite perfume. The images send a pleasant warmth throughout his chilling limbs and his heart skips. 

_ I love women. I can’t be gay. I love women.  _

He recalls the face Luffy made when Zoro did that…  _ thing  _ with his fingers inside of him. He pictures the complete and utter picture of euphoria painted across Zoro’s face as he made those first, tentative thrusts inside of Luffy. He remembers the intimacy of their shared breath, the utter filth of Zoro licking up Luffy’s cum, the mewling desperate whines that poured out of Luffy’s mouth like lava. 

_ “Good, Sanji. Just like that.”  _

He shivers. 

_ “Good, Sanji.”  _ Zoro’s voice looping over and over again, each replay just as poignant and  _ filthy  _ as the last. Sanji can’t deny the magma-hot burn of it through his bones.  _ Good. You’re so good,  _ he pictures, and loathes himself for it. 

_ “Sanji!”  _ Luffy’s mouth dropping open in a breathless, soundless scream, his face just as twisted up in bliss as any erotic drawing or picture Sanji’s ever seen. He didn’t know men  _ made  _ those faces—a perfect, agonized “o” as Zoro screwed him incoherent. 

_ “Good, Sanji.”  _

Fuck, the way Luffy  _ kisses.  _ The frantic rush of his tongue, the demand of his teeth and unbridled frenzy of his lips. God, the taste of him… Sanji could spend his whole life chasing flavors and never find that taste again. Like the smell of sea-spray without salt. The way your body feels after being out in the sun for too long and finally coming inside. The sureness of a kick aimed just-right, about to hit its target. 

(He wonders how Zoro might kiss.) 

_ Fuck. I’m not gay.  _

(He can’t get those fucking  _ words  _ out of his head.  _ “Good, Sanji.”  _

He can’t even fathom why, he’s not a  _ dog. _ He’s not holding on with bated breath for some praise from the fucking marimo of all people. And yet…) 

Sanji loves women. He remembers his first kiss: a rushed affair of fluttering hearts and whispered promises—a girl his age that had come to dine at the shitty restaurant with her family. He skittered around her for the whole meal, ducking behind columns and empty tables trying to get a better look at her beautiful face. She was whip smart and caught his eye across the dining hall no matter where he was hiding. The other chefs teased him about it  _ endlessly.  _ But, as her family finished their meal, she peeled off from the group and bee-lined for Sanji, planting one swift  _ smack  _ on his lips with her own as soon as she got close enough. 

_ “My name is Amae,”  _ she had said. Her smile was the most gut-wrenchingly beautiful smile he had ever seen. 

_ I’m not gay.  _

He had gone to a nearby island with the shitty geezer once while the restaurant was docked for maintenance and supplies. Sanji had managed to sneak away from Zeff long enough to explore, and he eventually found himself at a little noodle stand run by a talented woman that looked to be in her twenties (Sanji never had found out how old she was.) They chatted while he ate and he was terribly embarrassed that she ended up carrying the brunt of most of the conversation, as he was too tongue tied to do much but stare and will away a nose-bleed. 

Jen had tan skin and dark brown hair that she wore in a large, complex braid. Her eyes were brown but had hints of orange in them if one could look close enough, and Sanji certainly did. Jen’s shirt was sleeveless and didn’t even have straps, leaving an incredible, mesmerizing expanse of uninterrupted skin from her chin down to the top of her breasts. 

His mouth had watered throughout the entire meal, and not just because of her delicious food. 

Jen invited Sanji back to her apartment after she closed the stand later that night. He came embarrassingly fast—almost as soon as she touched him. 

She was his first and he  _ loved her.  _

_ I love women. I’m not gay.  _

Luffy and Zoro, sweaty and sated, leaning their combined weight against his body as they came down from their respective climaxes… his hands tingle at the thought of them. 

_ It was an aberration. A one-time thing.  _

(He’s small still, and in the kitchen, Patty and the other chefs are drunk and joking about something called  _ sodomy. _ ) 

_ I’m not like that.  _

(A poster on an island in the East-Blue boasts a treatment for  _ men loving men, a sexual disturbance—at Dr. Kay’s office, we can help!)  _

_ I’m not—  _

(A badly beaten man in a port and the whispers of the other sailors as Sanji walked past...) 

_ I’m—  _

(A woman he had been flirting with in a bar, her strawberry-blonde hair falling like a curtain over her somber face;  _ I wish I could love a man like you.  _ The way her eyes lingered on the waitress all night.)

_ “Good, Sanji. Just like that.”  _

“I’m not gay,” Sanji says. He turns the shower off.  __

* * *

Luffy and Zoro spend the night in the infirmary, taking full advantage of the privacy provided to bask in the afterglow together. It takes some significant convincing and effort on Zoro’s part, but eventually he manages to convince Luffy that Sanji probably just needs some time to sort himself out about everything.

Luffy doesn’t really get what needs to be sorted out here. Sex is amazing and they should keep having it—“they” being all three of them, together. Unless, of course, Sanji didn’t have a good time, but Luffy can’t know whether or not he had a good time without asking. Which leads back to the present concern, Sanji kinda ran away. And Zoro doesn’t want to go after him just yet. 

“He’s so far up his own ass, he probably needs some time,” Zoro had said, trapping Luffy in a tangle of really warm and truthfully unfairly cuddle-able limbs (magical limbs, at that… limbs capable of so much hidden pleasure). 

_ Pleasure. _ The word floats through Luffy’s mind as he stirs gradually awake. 

Zoro is laying flat on his back, one arm crossed over his chest and the other underneath the curve of Luffy’s neck. Luffy’s tucked securely into his side, using Zoro’s chest as a pillow, their legs hopelessly twisted together. It’s so warm in the space between their bodies. The low morning light coming in through the curtained window casts the room in shade. It’s still early dawn.

They must have fallen asleep.

Without disturbing Zoro much, Luffy shuffles around to peek at the door. Still locked. No Sanji anywhere to be found. 

He settles back down with a sigh. Luffy almost makes a truly embarrassing sound when Zoro murmurs in his sleep and readjusts. This process of readjusting, Luffy comes to find, involves a lot of Zoro-hugging-Luffy-closer-to-his-mostly-naked-body, which is not unwelcome but surprising. 

Zoro has done a lot of surprising him, lately. (Mostly with his voice and his hands and his tongue and the wonderful, magical things that they are capable of.) 

_ Maybe it’s time to do some surprising back,  _ Luffy decides. 

He wiggles down the cot until he’s about eye-level with Zoro’s crotch. Zoro makes a  _ hilarious  _ sound when he wakes up to Luffy trying to sucking his flaccid dick. 

With sleepy, frantic limbs, Zoro pulls Luffy up and off of his cock. 

“You’re crazy,” he tells him, holding Luffy’s face flat against his chest. (It’s not like Luffy is compelled to complain about his proximity to Zoro’s pecs. Not at all.) 

In response, Luffy pokes one of Zoro’s erect nipples. 

“Boop!” 

“Oh my god, do  _ not.”  _

They dissolve into laughter that drifts naturally off into a comfortable silence. Zoro is absently petting through Luffy’s hair, much like he does with Chopper’s fur whenever the little doctor takes a nap in his lap. It’s so absurdly nice that he doesn’t quite know what to do with it. 

“Luffy?” Zoro’s voice is a steady rumble against Luffy’s face. The soundwaves travel between their skin and vibrate through Luffy's every atom. He could easily fall back asleep like this, lulled into it by Zoro’s steady heartbeat and warm skin. 

Luffy hums to let him know he’s listening, but closes his eyes. 

“We should… talk about last night, I think,” Zoro tells him. He sounds uncomfortable, maybe even embarrassed, but his heartbeat is steady. “It could be casual and we can both move on and not talk about it or do it again...” 

“That’s stupid,” Luffy says because it  _ is _ . It is _supremely_ stupid.

“Or, we could keep it casual but also keep doing it. We could keep it secret, if you want. I don’t mind." He can feel Zoro swallow. His heartbeat picks up, then, he continues. "Or... we could… not. Do that. _ ”  _ Zoro drops off into mumbles and murmurs, too embarrassed to say more. Zoro’s chest flushes pink when he’s embarrassed. (This is supremely incredibly knowledge. Luffy is delighted to have it.)

Luffy props himself up to stare at his first mate. He lets his devilish glee show on his face. It is not a hardship to look Zoro. He's so... _Zoro._

“Zoro,” Luffy sing-songs. “Do you want to be  _ boyfriends?”  _

Zoro groans and covers his tomato-red face with both hands. “Who taught you that word? I hate you.” 

Luffy snickers. “ _ Boooyyyfriends!”  _

“Stop it, you’re killing me.” 

“Hey, Zoro?” Luffy gathers his hands up and removes them from his face. “Do you think Sanji will want to be boyfriends, too?” 

Zoro kind of scowls a bit (and this is normal, as a scowl is usually the expression he reserves for Sanji.) Then, he grimaces. 

“I don’t think so. But, we should still talk to him.” 

“I want him to be,” Luffy declares. “It doesn’t feel right that he was there and then he wasn’t. Feels weird for us to be…” he gestures vaguely to the space between them “... without him.” Zoro shrugs. “I know you want him too, though,” Luffy adds because otherwise Zoro would never admit to it. Then, he sticks his tongue into Zoro’s ear to cut off whatever protest he was gathering. 

“You’re disgusting, I don’t want to be—…” Zoro grumbles. 

“You can’t even say it!” Luffy squeals and smacks him once in the center of the chest. “Zoro and me, sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes  _ me,  _ then comes  _ Sanji,  _ then last is  _ Zoro  _ because he’s  _ slow—”  _

At this point, the song ends because Zoro shoves him off of the bed.  __

All in all, it’s a good morning. 

* * *

  
  


By the time Luffy finally meanders into the kitchen, the crew has already gathered for breakfast. Luffy had gone back to sleep shortly after their… discussion, but Zoro had not. He’d gotten up to train a bit before breakfast and also to shower, because he reeked something  _ awful.  _

Zoro usually wouldn’t think much of the captain’s late arrival—Luffy likes to sleep in as much as he possibly can on any given day. He’s not  _ worried  _ exactly. Just… gently concerned. The captain is bound to be pretty sore after last night.

So, when Luffy strides into the kitchen with an impossibly wide yawn but an otherwise normal countenance, Zoro breathes a silent sigh of relief.  _ I didn’t hurt him too badly. Perks of being a rubber-man, I guess. _

Luffy takes in the bare table. It's not yet crammed till bursting with the breakfast Sanji is still preparing-- and damn if Sanji has been _vocal_ about not wanting anyone near his kitchen this morning, promptly fucking up Zoro's plans to talk to him. 

Luffy gives a sleepy morning smile to the assembled crew. Then, calm as the clear blue sky, Luffy marches over to Zoro, slings his rubber arms around his shoulders, and plants a sloppy wet kiss right on his lips. 

“Mornin’!” Luffy erupts. He steals one more kiss and his lips taste stale with morning breath. Zoro can feel him grinning into the kiss. 

His heart gives a painful lurch.

A plate shatters in the kitchen. 

No one notices. They're all too busy going catatonic. 

“What the fuck,” Nami breathes. Where she had previously been slumped over in a hungover daze, she’s now upright and alert. Same goes for Usopp, whose jaw has dropped so far that coffee is dribbling out of his mouth in a steady stream. 

“Franky-san, do my eyes deceive me? Ah, but, I don’t have eyes!” The usual enthusiasm with which Brook approaches skull-jokes seems to be lacking in the face of his overwhelming shock. Even his accompanying “Yo ho ho” laughter sounds like it’s flatlined.

Franky’s jaw makes a disturbing rigid clicking as it drops open in shock by increments.  Robin sprouts an extra hand to gently close Usopp’s mouth and another to wipe up the puddle of coffee on the table.  Chopper, the only sensible one of the lot, has not looked up from his book. (Zoro makes a mental note to somehow covertly relay to Robin and Chopper that they are his new favorite nakama.) 

Luffy, either unconcerned or oblivious, flops down at Zoro’s side (sitting so close he’s practically in his lap) and starts to drum his fingers on the table in anticipation of food. And, as if on cue, he bellows, “Sanji! Food!” 

Nami and Usopp exchange a  _ look.  _ Then, Nami looks helplessly at Robin. Robin smiles in that suspiciously understated way she has. After a moment of staring at each other, something seems to occur to Nami. She grins like a shark. 

“I believe I am owed some money,” she states, elbowing Usopp once sharply in the side. 

Usopp gives her a truly heinous glare. 

“I hate you,” he says. Usopp looks fucking  _ miserably  _ hungover and also surprisingly  _ defeated,  _ given it’s only nine-thirty in the morning, and it usually takes till about at least the early afternoon for him to look so downtrodden by life. 

Nami appears to fight back a sudden wave of nausea. “I hate me too, right now. But Robin and I still won.” 

“Won what?” Luffy asks. Then, as an afterthought, he turns and shouts over his shoulder, “Sanji! Food!” in a slightly louder and more insistent tone. 

“Just a simple wager, Captain,” Robin entertains, grinning behind a cup of coffee. “We bet in pairs on how long it would take you and Swordsman-san to couple-up.” 

Another plate shatters dramatically in the kitchen, followed by a curt,  _ “FUCK!”  _

Usopp scrubs a hand over his face dramatically. “No more sound,” he moans. 

“In any case, congratulations, bros! Even though I’m out a hundred belli…” Franky mimes a toast with his own coffee. 

Chopper just sort of… blinks at Zoro and Luffy from behind his book. “I don’t really understand human mating rituals, but please make sure you practice safe sex.” 

In the kitchen, something hits the wall with a sharp  _ smack  _ followed by a dull thud and a strangled scream. 

(All in all, things went better than Zoro had expected them to.)

* * *

Somehow, Sanji manages to avoid being alone with the two of them (or with either one of them) successfully for nearly a week after that morning. Despite the Sunny being a relatively small vessel compared to other pirate ships, Sanji effectively manages to evade Zoro and Luffy’s every move. Even the rest of the crew has noticed. 

Which is why Luffy has got to take some drastic measures. 

* * *

The Sunny is docked on this particular afternoon at an uninhabited little island while they wait for the log pose to set. Zoro, Chopper, Franky and Usopp have disappeared among the island’s dense forests on their own individual quests, leaving Robin and Luffy to trek back to the Sunny for lunch at the first grumble of Luffy's stomach. 

It is on the walk back to the ship that Robin gives Luffy a perfect opportunity to enact Operation Drastic Measures. 

(The details of the operation themselves are barely formed. All Luffy knows is that something must be done and it will probably need to be dramatic. This is enough to constitute a plan, by his standards, although Zoro has protested that it is neither a plan nor even an _idea_.) 

“Captain-san,” Robin begins as they meander between the trees, “I’ve just stumbled upon some wonderful old maps in a historic text I’ve been reading. When we return to the ship, I’ll be bringing them to Navigator-san in the library. I imagine we’ll be busy for quite some time.” 

He hums in acknowledgement, not really caring too much about what Nami and Robin will spend the afternoon doing. It isn’t until they’re back aboard the Sunny and the two women have disappeared that Luffy understands.

On deck, Brook is humming a sedate tune while scribbling away at some sheet music. Sanji must be in the kitchen finishing lunch. Nami and Robin will be distracted probably until lunch is ready and the rest of the crew have returned. 

Luffy  _ really  _ wants to talk to Sanji. A week of silence and hiding is more than enough. It has to be. His patience can only extend so far. 

The Plan comes to Luffy in increments. Zoro's not here. Brook and Robin and Nami are, though Nami and Robin won't be any fun--Robin made that clear. Luffy sighs and stares out at the ocean. 

The ocean. In which Devil Fruit users cannot swim. 

(Ace always said he wouldn’t know patience if it bit him in the ass. He was probably right.) 

Luffy takes a running leap straight overboard and into the ocean. 

* * *

Sanji has just taken the roasted vegetables out of the oven when Brook comes flying into the kitchen. 

“Brook what—”

“ _ Luffy fell into the sea!”  _ Brook all but screams. "Nami's in the library, she won't make it in time!"

With frantic fingers, Sanji rips his apron off, already starting towards the deck.  _ Shit,  _ he thought Luffy and Zoro _both_ were out exploring the forest. Why would only Luffy and Robin return?

_ Where is the damn Marimo? Isn’t this his job?  _ He thinks furiously. _God, the moss-head is even a shitty fucking boyfriend._

No one is on deck when he gets there and the sea is disturbingly still. Sanji doesn’t even know the  _ direction  _ Luffy’s fallen in. 

“Over this way!” Brook calls, teetering over the edge of the rail to indicate where he means. Sanji doesn’t fucking need  _ him  _ to fall overboard, too, so he pulls Brook back and away in the same motion that he dives down. 

The water is cold—not as cold of a winter sea, but cold enough to be distinctly uncomfortable nonetheless. All things considered, it doesn’t take him that long to find Luffy among the water. It’s shallow enough where Sunny has docked that things aren’t too dark. Luffy’s red shirt sticks out like a beacon, even as he sinks. 

Sanji grabs him under the arms and hauls Luffy up, gathering him to his chest as he starts the furious push back up. 

They surface with a gasp, Sanji being careful to keep Luffy’s head above water. Immediately, Luffy starts to hack and cough, chest heaving with each violent retch of ocean water. When he’s done, his head lolls weightless against Sanji’s shoulder. The parallel is striking. ( _"Sanji, Zoro", Luffy gasping and dropping his head down to rest on Sanji's shoulder, moaning right against his skin--)_

_ Thank god for cold water,  _ Sanji bitterly thinks. 

“Sanji,” Luffy mumbles, still boneless for all that he’s still mostly submerged. 

“Shitty Captain,” he grumbles, starting to swim back towards the ship. 

“Sanji,” Luffy repeats, insistent. “Does Sanji hate us, now?” 

Breath stutters out of his lungs. Sanji stops dead, almost re-submerging both him and Luffy in his shock. 

“No!” He immediately exclaims. “What—?”

“You’re avoiding us.” And  _ dammit,  _ he’s right.  _ Fuck.  _ “So if you don’t hate us then why?” 

“It’s…  _ complicated,”  _ Sanji tries, grimacing even as he says it. 

Pressed close like this, he can  _ feel  _ Luffy scowl against the bare skin of his neck. “No, it isn’t,” he protests, pushing ineffectually at Sanji’s chest.

“ _ Yes it is,”  _ Sanji hisses. They’re coming up on the Sunny, now. Just a little bit longer and then this horrible conversation will be  _ over—  _

“How? Let me help—”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he tries. 

“Then let me understand—”

“I’m not  _ like that,  _ Luffy,” Sanji says with as much force as he can muster. “I’m  _ not.”  _

Luffy growls as they reach the Sunny, and shouts, “I don’t believe you!” right in his face. Brook throws down the rope ladder, but blessedly says nothing. “Sanji.  _ Sanji.”  _ They hit the deck and Sanji drops Luffy like he’s a hot coal, rushing back, desperate to get  _ away,  _ to fuck  _ right the fuck off _ . 

With a snarl, Luffy whips off his sea-water soggy shirt and it hits the deck with a forceful  _ slap.  _ He stares Sanji down and says, booming and authoritative in the way he so rarely is, “Captain’s  _ orders,  _ Sanji. We’re gonna  _ talk.”  _

On the other end of the ship, the evidently just-returned exploration party are frozen and watching with wide eyes. 

“Okay, what the fuck,” Usopp breathes. 

Luffy notices them just as Chopper cries a tearful, “Don’t fight!” 

“Zoro, too,” Luffy says, making Sanji’s day about ten thousand times worse with just those two words. 

_ There’s nothing to talk about. I like women. Not— _

_ (Good, Sanji. Good, you’re so good,  _ in Zoro’s voice, seeping through his brain like a wicked poison.)

“Fine,” Sanji bites out, stalking towards the other end of the ship. If they’re doing this (and apparently they fucking  _ are)  _ Sanji will  _ not  _ be having this conversation within earshot of the ladies. 

He purposely forces past Zoro, knocking into his (wide, muscular, strong)  _ stupid  _ shoulder just because he’s too pissed to  _ not.  _ Zoro curses after him and the wet slap of Luffy’s soggy sandals against the deck signal that he, too, is following him off of the ship and towards the island forest.

Luffy lets Sanji take them fairly fair into the woods—and he  _ knows  _ that Luffy is  _ letting him,  _ he  _ knows  _ that Luffy has absolutely zero qualms about having this conversation in the middle of  _ Marine Headquarters  _ if he so damn chose, knows that this is only for his own benefit, and the reality of the fact that he’s  _ letting Sanji  _ like he’s some  _ petulant kid  _ is _infuriating._

“Alright,  _ fine,”  _ he gets out, stopping and turning suddenly to face the two. “Talk.” 

“Why are you avoiding us?” Luffy asks, arms crossed and expression hard. 

“I’m  _ not.” _

Zoro laughs and it’s an  _ ugly  _ sound. “Bullshit.” 

Sanji scrubs a hand roughly over his face. _God,_ he wants a smoke. The recent dunk in the ocean has rendered all of his fucking cigarettes  _ useless.  _ He peels his sopping wet suit jacket off of himself and starts to ring it out just for something to do with his hands. 

“Why?” Luffy repeats. 

“ _ Because,”  _ Sanji starts, only to realize he doesn’t have anything else to say. He’s avoiding them because—( _the face Luffy makes when he comes, the sight of Zoro’s fingers disappearing into his body, the noises and the_ _ heat  of it and " _good, Sanji, just like that, get yourself out"_ ) _ — just... _because._

“Say it or I will,” Zoro threatens, glaring with all the force he can manage. Sanji scoffs. “Yeah, thought so,” Zoro continues. He steps forward, now shoulder to shoulder with Luffy instead of just behind him. 

“You’re avoiding us because you liked it and you want to do it again but you’re scared about what that means. In fact, you’re so scared about liking men that you won’t even be in the same room as either of us. And you do—you  _ like men,  _ Cook.” 

Sanji swallows. It sticks in his throat on the way down. Involuntarily, he takes a step back. Zoro has been moving closer this whole time in steady footsteps that ratchet his heartbeat higher. 

“No,” Sanji says. He intends it to be forceful but instead it comes out quiet. Raspy.  _ Weak.  _

“Yeah, you do. I saw you. We saw you.”

“I like  _ women,”  _ Sanji retorts, scathing to make up for the pitiful attempt just a moment before. He isn’t going to back down. Not like this.  _ I’m not gay.  _

“Never said you  _ didn’t,”  _ Zoro replies. “You can like  _ both,  _ you fucking idiot. You  _ clearly  _ do.”

“Fuck  _ off,”  _ he hisses, bracing for a fight. Zoro’s certainly squaring up for one, if he keeps talking like that. Fucking  _ asshole-- _ what the hell does he know, anyways?

“You are such a fucking coward—” 

Zoro’s rising voice is cut abruptly off by the sound of sword meeting shoe. Sanji’s leg is smoking, only kept from being fully ablaze by the fact that he's still as wet as a drowned cat.

“ _ Shut the fuck up,”  _ he hisses. 

Zoro swats his leg aside with the dull edge of his katana. “You’re a coward because you won’t face what you are like a man.” Sanji  _ hates  _ that the words make him so angry—that they make him so  _ sloppy  _ as they fight. 

Zoro’s _not sloppy—_ the damn Marimo not even _angry_ —and that only makes Sanji _more angry_ so it’s only a matter of time before his back hits the trunk of a tree and swords stab through the fabric of his shirt on either side, pinning him to the tree like a fucking _bug._

“Admit it.” 

Sanji spits in his face. “Fuck you.” 

“Zoro,” Luffy says. It doesn’t really register. 

“Admit it,” Zoro repeats. 

“There’s  _ nothing  _ to admit,” Sanji growls. 

With a growl, Zoro lurches for him and Sanji braces for a punch that doesn’t come. Instead, hands snatch up his shoulders and Zoro’s mouth crashes into his own. Recklessly, Sanji gasps, fruitlessly attempting to recoil, and Zoro just presses in  _ harder.  _ His tongue forces past his lips in that same moment, swiping harsh and brutal through his mouth. Zoro kisses with a barely restrained violence. 

Frozen, Sanji…  _ takes it.  _

(And  _ oh  _ is it  _ so good.  _ He didn’t fucking  _ know  _ kissing could be like  _ this— _ harsh and fast and  _ claiming.  _ It’s fucking  _ consuming.  _ The taste and the heat and the  _ bite  _ of him, ravaging like a storm—like a  _ fight,  _ it’s a  _ fight— _ and adrenaline arcs through him like a live current. He pushes into Sanji’s mouth with such  _ force,  _ teeth scraping against him, noses crushed together, and lungs  _ burning.  _ God, he’s  _ burning— _ his mouth is so fucking  _ hot _ —) 

A sound escapes him—it’s not a fucking  _ whine,  _ it  _ isn’t— _ and an answering sound is jolted out of Zoro. It hits like a kick to the gut, low and blunt. Sanji is hard—hard as goddamn  _ diamond.  _

Zoro breaks away. Their lips make a slick sound when they part. 

They stare at each other, heaving chests and open mouths. Zoro licks his lips. Sanji throbs in his pants. 

“Okay,” Zoro says, and kisses him again. 

* * *

Sanji moans like a whore as their mouths slide back together.

_ Fuck,  _ Zoro thinks, licking insistently into his mouth. The way Sanji just…  _ opens up  _ for it— _ melts  _ for it… Luffy is all playful eagerness with bold and greedy hands. Sanji is just…  _ starving for it,  _ all needy noises and hiccuping breath. 

It’s fucking  _ addicting.  _

Zoro gets a leg in between Sanji’s and grinds just to watch what it does to the cook. Sanji writhes against his thigh like he just can’t help it, gasping into Zoro’s mouth. Aroused beyond all comprehension, Zoro is probably rougher than he should be, pushing his thigh  _ hard  _ against Sanji’s straining erection and scratching rough and  _ mean  _ against his scalp. 

Sanji  _ shivers  _ in his arms. 

Experimentally, Zoro scratches again. Undeniable, Sanji’s dick  _ twitches  _ where it’s pressed against his leg. 

_ So that’s how it is.  _

Before Zoro can take the knowledge any further, there’s a hand on his collar, jerking him back.  _ Luffy.  _

“Stop hogging him!” Luffy gripes, pouting but looking pleased. Though he pulls Zoro back, he doesn’t make him move. He and Sanji stay pressed flush together, now with Luffy draped across his back, peering over his shoulder. “Sanji,” Luffy draws out his name, playful on every syllable. “I thought you said it was complicated.” 

Sanji is panting like he’s been running for hours. “It is,” he manages eventually, looking (predictably) ashamed. 

Luffy says, forcefully, “So uncomplicate it.” 

Sanji grates out a strained laugh. “Is that an order?” he attempts to joke. It falls flat and dies in the space between the three of them. 

Zoro can  _ feel  _ Luffy’s ensuing grin. 

“Do you want it to be?” 

Sanji swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing. Zoro tracks the movement, hungry for it--for every _twitch_ so long as Sanji's making it. Though Sanji squirms a little, he says nothing and  _ really,  _ the silence has the answer enough. 

Luffy laughs, delighted, and really, Zoro shouldn’t be  _ surprised.  _ Luffy' s been pretty damn insatiable since that first night, demanding kisses almost as frequently as he whines for food. Sex has been slower to garner Luffy’s enthusiasm, but he’s certainly more than willing--so long as Zoro initiates. And as they’ve fooled around this past week, Luffy’s only gotten bolder. 

His captain levels Sanji with a devilish smile. “Good. I want to learn how to make Sanji feel good, too.” 

The words themselves aren’t particularly seductive. It’s the way he says them that does it. The brute honesty. The genuine giddy excitement. It’s staggeringly effective. Sanji’s hips snap abruptly up to grind against Zoro’s thigh again, like he just can’t stop himself. 

And _fuck,_ it’s  _ ridiculous  _ how pretty he is. Zoro's just about to say so when-- 

Chopper’s voice, distant but there, shatters the moment. “You guys!” he calls, his steps audibly drawing nearer.

Panic flashes through Sanji’s eyes like lightning. 

_ Goddamn it. Just when we were getting somewhere.  _

Zoro and Luffy both back away while Sanji frantically attempts to straighten himself out a little. 

“Shut up,” Zoro mumbles, feeling an embarrassed blush creep up his neck as Luffy prods him, obviously having picked up on his frustration. As he sheathes his katanas (not  _ excessively  _ angrily… he’s just  _ frustrated, whatever)  _ Luffy rocks up on his toes to plant a consoling kiss on his lips. It doesn't help. ( _Okay, it does a little.)_

Chopper comes bounding through the underbrush a moment later. 

“Oh! There you are! I was worried you would start fighting and I’m low on antiseptic right now,” he explains. Chopper gives Zoro a long look. “You’re not injured, are you, Zoro?”

"Hey! Why am I the one you accuse?"

Luffy, the asshole, laughs at him. 

“No, Chopper. No one’s injured," Sanji offers. Then, he clears his throat. “I should have served lunch half an hour ago. We shouldn’t keep the ladies waiting any longer.” 

Luffy, predictably, begins to drool. “Sanji! Meat!” He launches himself forward, catching Sanji off-guard and hanging off of his shoulders like a spider monkey. 

“Alright, alright!” 

The trek back to the ship really doesn’t take that long. Sanji is just about to climb back on board after Luffy and Chopper when Zoro catches him by the elbow. 

“Cook.” 

“What?” Sanji asks, looking nervous and embarrassed and angry all at the same time.  _ God,  _ Zoro thinks,  _ it must be exhausting to have so many emotions all the time.  _ He can't fathom how Sanji manages it without exploding. 

“Don’t overthink it. We… We want this. With you.” Sanji’s eyes widen, like this is the last thing he expected--like he can’t quite believe it.

“We want you,” Zoro tells him. 

After a beat, “I didn’t know human faces could get so red,” Sanji says, because Sanji is  _ an asshole.  _ (A sexy asshole-- _an asshole Zoro wants to fuck until Sanji cries--_ but an  _ asshole  _ nonetheless.) Before Zoro can defend himself, Sanji cuts him off, looking serious. “I don’t…” he sighs. “We’ll see. I’m not saying no, but... I’m not saying yes, either. Okay?” 

Zoro nods. 

Just before they enter the kitchen, Sanji stops him. 

“Zoro?” He's uncharacteristically quiet. The curtain of his hair hides his face from view. 

“Hm?”

“Did you mean it? About… being able to like both?”

_ Oh.  _

“Yeah.” 

Sanji nods. With that, they head inside. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve been thinking.” Sanji states without any preamble. Zoro bites his tongue on the reply that comes to mind. Instead, he waits. Luffy, blessedly thoughtful in that unexpected way of his, waits as well. “About…well. What we talked about. And if—” his eyes find Zoro’s and it’s shocking, really, like a fucking lightning strike and oh, how Zoro has felt lightning before, “—if you meant what you said, I… wouldn’t be opposed to... experimenting, I guess.” 
> 
> “Experimenting?” Luffy says, brushing crumbs off of his chin. 
> 
> “Yeah,” Sanji murmurs. “Experimenting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sweating. This is now 53 pages long. I keep getting more ideas. The chapter length keeps increasing. Maybe we will end with four chapters. Maybe five. Maybe twelve. I do not know. This has gotten very out of hand. 
> 
> Also, I kinda wanna address that I felt really weird about the last chapter. I don't know what it was, but the scene in the forest and the bit after just didn't feel *right* for this story? If any of you also noticed that, I apologize, I don't really know what it was either. I have this horrible anxiety that each chapter just gets so far from what I intended it to be that it's unrecognizable as the same thing and that the story as a whole reads as an incoherent jumble of ill-thought-out twists and tone-shifts. I appreciate all of you for bearing with me on this wild ride. 
> 
> Wash your hands, take care of yourselves, stay inside, and stay healthy <3

For the next few weeks, they don’t talk about it. Which, if you ask Sanji, is absolutely  _ fine  _ because there are some things in his life that he never,  _ ever  _ wants to talk about and this is one of them. So. 

Everything is  _ fine.  _

(He’s not disappointed in the least.)

* * *

In the middle of the night, Sanji wakes to insistent hands shaking him by the shoulders. (Somehow, on some subconscious level, his body recognizes that this situation is not a threat before his mind does. The panic does not register—it hardly even comes. One moment he is sleeping and the next he is not.) 

Luffy’s face is unmistakable, even in the dark of the cabin. He hovers just a few inches above Sanji’s own head.  _ Close,  _ his brain reminds him unhelpfully. Sanji sits up, bleary. 

“I’m hungry,” Luffy whispers. He is, truly, a terrible whisperer. 

“Alright,” Sanji grumbles, jaw cracking around a yawn. Luffy backs up a few steps to allow Sanji the room to maneuver. Carefully, he slides out of the wooden hanging bunks, attempting to minimize their sway. In the bunk above his own, Usopp snuffles restlessly before turning over and continuing to snore. 

Sanji stumbles around in the dark for a moment, looking for his socks. He can’t see  _ shit.  _

Fingers prod at his back. When he turns in answer, Luffy shoves Sanji’s own socks into his hands. Then, unceremoniously, Luffy gets a fist-full of the tee-shirt he wore to bed and starts to tug him towards the ladder. 

“Sheesh, alright, alright,” he whispers. Sanji ends up having to tug his shirt free of Luffy’s insistent grip long enough to be able to ascend the ladder by feeling alone in the dark.

This doesn’t happen too frequently, but it doesn’t happen  _ infrequently,  _ either. Luffy’s metabolism is truly devilish, and even when he stuffs himself stupid at dinner each night, his appetite can still wake him up out of a dead sleep. 

The first time it happened, Sanji had just joined the crew. Not yet used to the sounds of the  _ Merry Go,  _ every slight creak of the ship jostled him out of whatever light doze he had managed to accomplish. There were only a few hammocks and he and Zoro had both slept uncomfortably on the floor. He wasn’t yet used to this, either. So, when his captain (and wasn’t that a novel thought, at the time?) had woken with a start and a deep grumble of his stomach, Sanji was shocked instantly awake. 

In the middle hammock, between Chopper and Usopp, Luffy’s silhouette had stirred restlessly. Deep, insistent grumbling had filled the air like a bass. A few feet away, Zoro had groaned and rolled over, throwing an arm over his eyes. He didn’t seem too concerned—even though he was an idiot, he had been here longer than Sanji, at this point. Surely, if something was wrong, the first-mate would be the first person to be worried, right? 

But Luffy’s stomach had kept growling and it was obvious that it was keeping him awake, if the restless shifting was anything to go by. Hell, it was keeping Sanji and Zoro _and_ probably Chopper and Usopp up, too. Then, Luffy had audibly winced. 

It was at this point that Sanji had gotten to his feet and sought out Luffy’s hammock with hardly-adjusted eyes. 

“How about a midnight snack, Captain?” he had said. The relief and joy on Luffy’s face was so bright it was nearly blinding, even in the dark.

Since then, Luffy has never hesitated to wake Sanji when he gets hungry. It’s not like Sanji  _ minds  _ (despite how much he groans and gripes about it in the moment). It’s his duty, after all. If he can’t even keep his captain well-fed, what kind of chef does that make him? 

Sanji winces as he turns the lights on in the gallery. It’s a dark night out, tonight. 

Luffy pads blearily after him, flopping down into a breakfast stool and resting his head in his hands. His hat must still be in the men’s cabin, Sanji notes absently. Luffy’s hair is sleep-ruffled and soft-looking. The urge to reach out and  _ touch  _ is poignant. His fingers twitch with the aborted motion. 

_ Not your place,  _ he reminds himself. 

Feeling a blush rise stubbornly, Sanji turns on his heel and begins rummaging through the fridge for what he needs. 

Sanji has a pan suitably greased on the warming burner and is just starting to slice the bread for a few grilled cheese sandwiches when Luffy’s voice cuts through the comfortable quiet. He’s not particularly loud, either. There’s just…  _ weight  _ to the words. 

“Sanji takes such good care of me,” Luffy says. Sanji nearly drops the knife. (He doesn’t because he’s a  _ professional  _ and if he dropped a utensil or dish everytime Luffy did something surprising, he’d have nothing left.) 

_ There’s that blush again.  _ Sanji tries to subtly shake the warm, fluttery feeling off his shoulders. He goes back to slicing the bread. 

“It’s my job,” he deflects. There’s a long moment of silence and Sanji almost thinks Luffy is going to drop it until he speaks again. 

“Nah, not just that. You care a lot.”

_ What the fuck? It is almost one in the morning, who the fuck does he think he is?  _ Sanji’s heartbeat drums a distracting staccato beneath his ribs. 

The grilled cheese hits the pan with a sizzle. Another joins it; the pan is large enough to cook two at a time. That taken care of, Sanji sets about preparing himself some tea. He chooses a chamomile and lavender blend—something soothing that will help him drop back off to sleep once this is done. It’ll only be about four more hours before he has to be up again. 

The kitchen door creaks open. 

Luffy hums, a soft, contented sound, and Sanji turns to see who’s joined them. 

Zoro is bent over Luffy’s back, resting his arms across Luffy’s smaller shoulders. Sanji watches as Zoro presses a single closed-mouth kiss on the side of Luffy’s face, frozen with the unexpected intimacy of it. Luffy smiles and his eyes drop closed. He sways into Zoro’s hands, like a pleased cat.

Sanji is suddenly itching for a cigarette. 

(He ignores the painful stab of  _ something  _ in his chest—it’s not jealousy, but it’s especially not  _ longing _ , because that would be _ insane. _ )

“Did you want something, too?” Sanji asks just to fill the suddenly uncomfortable silence. He flips the sandwiches artfully in the pan. 

He can almost feel Zoro blink slowly in the pause that follows. Sanji can’t really blame him, exactly… That was a little too civil, as far as their interactions usually go. 

_ Sue me, it’s fucking ass-o-clock,  _ he thinks, suddenly bitter.

“Nah,” Zoro replies after a beat or two. Another breakfast stool scrapes against the wood floor as Zoro pulls it out to sit. The three of them lapse back into silence. 

Sanji somehow finds himself feeling ridiculously vulnerable, pinned under the lazy, sleepy stare of these two. He itches for a suit—for some more layers to put between himself and their eyes—incredibly naked in just a thin tee and sweatpants. His worn cotton socks are silent on the floor. 

The strange energy of the room stretches thick between them like taffy. 

(In time, the sandwiches are done, each side perfectly golden and the cheese in the middle melted and thick.) 

* * *

Zoro looks at Sanji and feels his mouth run dry. The light in the kitchen is… different, at night. Everything seems to glow in oranges and yellows, like firelight, even though not a single candle has been lit. Underneath the calming glow, Sanji, well, he  _ glows.  _

Something about him in casual clothing—none of those stupid suits with their ridiculous layers and buttons and  _ sleeves _ —is so fucking alluring, it makes Zoro dizzy with it. Sanji’s got on some old, soft grey shirt that’s a little too worn and, as a result, gapes loose around his collarbones. The dark sweatpants he’s wearing bunch up around the ankles where the elastic is still strong. He’s nearly ethereal in the warm light; golden hair (looking sleep-soft and tousled) turned honey-colored, skin pale and teasing, movements oddly even more graceful than usual with the silence his socked feet give to each turn and step. 

The urge to touch is overwhelming.

(Luffy, as it seems, is having a similar problem, if his stillness and his quiet is anything to go by. Every few seconds, he fidgets restless in his chair) 

While Sanji flips the bread in the pan, Zoro turns and catches Luffy already looking at him and making a face that screams,  _ Hey, Zoro, why the fuck are we waiting?  _

Zoro hopes he manages to approximate a look that responds,  _ I know, I know, but just because he’s pretty doesn’t mean we can fuck this up.  _

Luffy rolls his eyes comically, makes a gurgling sound not unlike the sound he makes when he falls into the ocean, and flops exaggeratedly over the counter with a loud  _ thud.  _

Sanji  _ jumps  _ at the sound, whirling on his heel. 

Zoro’s eyes meet his for a brief, charged moment.  _ What does he see on my face, right now? Can he see how much we want him?  _

Sanji, looking somewhat flummoxed, clears his throat and tosses out a forcefully flippant comment, playing at his normal confidence. “Quit groaning, it’s almost done.” 

And  _ oh,  _ he’s such a sight without all that usual posturing and easy swagger. There’s something so unguarded about Sanji in this early morning hour… something so rarely seen and so _ delicious _ for it. 

Zoro almost feels like he’s  _ stealing,  _ sitting here at the counter, watching him without his suit and his carefully styled hair and his smoke-heavy breath and his loud, taunting voice. (He can’t even feel guilty for the theft of it, given how much he craves it.) 

Sanji eventually transfers the sandwiches over to a plate, which he places on the counter in front of Luffy’s grabby hands. Surprisingly, the cook meets Zoro’s eyes when he passes over the plate. (His face isn’t red with a blush—no, nothing as obvious as that, because when would this ever be easy?—but there’s something  _ there  _ in the set of his jaw and the sharpness of that stupid, curled brow.)

Some shared awareness passes between them in the fraction of a second before it is gone. Breathless, Zoro wonders just what it was. 

Two more sandwiches sizzle when they hit the heated pan. At the rate Luffy is inhaling the two he’s already been given, it’s probably good that the cook has started on another round. On the stove, the kettle starts to hiss. Sanji switches that particular burner off with nimble fingers, moving through this space with a supernatural sort of grace to him. 

Zoro hardly even notices that Sanji is pouring  _ two  _ cups of tea, far too enraptured by the simple movement of him. It’s only when there’s a cup and a saucer in front of him that Zoro registers it. 

Sanji has served him anyways, despite his dismissal. 

He really didn’t need the tea (it didn’t even occur to him to want it) but now that it’s there, Zoro doesn’t hesitate. His eyes are fixed to Sanji like magnets, even though the cook isn’t looking back. He’s got his own tea cup cradled in one hand, hip leaning against the counter, his other hand clasped around a spatula, prodding gently at the edges of the sandwiches he’s grilling. With the fall of his hair, Zoro can’t even see his face. 

He  _ knows  _ that Sanji can feel him staring. 

_ How does it feel?  _

The tea is hot but pleasant on his tongue. 

_ Tell me how it feels, you shitty bastard.  _

In one motion, Sanji takes the empty plate from Luffy’s hands and settles the final two sandwiches on top before deftly sliding it back to his greedy hands. Zoro can read the reverence in Luffy’s quiet, thoughtful chewing. It’s in the tip of his uncovered head and the quirk of his eyes as they too trace Sanji around the room. 

_ Can you feel his desire, too?  _

The last burner turns off with a click. 

“I’ve been thinking.” Sanji states without any preamble. Zoro bites his tongue on the reply that comes to mind. Instead, he waits. Luffy, blessedly thoughtful in that unexpected way of his, waits as well. “About…well. What we talked about.” 

_ Can you feel it?  _

Sanji takes a deep breath, visibly steeling himself. His eyes remain fixed anywhere in the room but on Luffy or Zoro as he contemplates his next words. 

“And if—” his eyes find Zoro’s and it’s shocking, really, like a fucking lightning strike and  _ oh,  _ how Zoro has felt those before, “—if you meant what you said, I… wouldn’t be opposed to... experimenting, I guess _.”  _

Luffy hums. Zoro’s hand shoots out to grip his thigh under the counter.  _ Careful,  _ his grip warns. 

“Experimenting?” Luffy says, brushing crumbs off of his chin. 

Sanji flushes a little, at that. It’s barely noticeable, unless you’re looking for it (and Zoro  _ is.)  _

_ Can you feel what we’ve been trying to say? _

“Yeah,” Sanji murmurs. “Experimenting. You know… trying  _ stuff  _ out.” He shoots a sharp  _ look  _ towards Zoro. “Slowly.” 

_ Sheesh.  _

“Like you wanna watch again?” Luffy supplies. The flush deepens. Extends. 

“Sure, like that.” It’s obvious the words are a challenge. Luffy swallows them eagerly, a slow grin building behind his lips. 

“What else?” Luffy asks. 

“Uh—”

“Can I kiss you?” 

_ “Luffy,”  _ Zoro admonishes, not because he doesn’t trust him, but because  _ goddamn,  _ this has been  _ so slow going  _ and he  _ so doesn’t want to fuck it up.  _

Sanji’s eyes flicker to his, briefly. 

_ Can you feel it? Are you thinking about it right now?  _

“Not, uh.” Sanji swallows. “Not yet.” 

This doesn’t deter Luffy in the least. He smiles, slow and easy. “Okay!” 

“We’re reaching an island, soon,” Zoro says. The implications are clear. He makes them clearer. “It’s inhabited.” Nami said so yesterday. “We’ll find a place.” 

He watches Sanji’s throat bob when he swallows. 

“Alright!” Luffy cheers, minimally subdued by the knowledge that the rest of the crew is no doubt sleeping right below their feet. “Tomorrow,” he declares. 

He plants a sloppy kiss on Zoro’s cheek and throws out a, “Night, Sanji!” before slipping out of the kitchen. Feeling his own smile threaten to pull the corners of his mouth, Zoro also stands. 

“Night, Sanji.” 

“...Night, Zoro.”

And  _ oh,  _ he wasn’t expecting  _ that.  _ The warm feeling that washes through him extends to the very tips of his toes. 

Zoro lets the door close softly behind him. 

* * *

Deershore is a winter island, to Chopper’s utter delight. The ground is covered in a thick layer of snow and ice, but thankfully the inhabitants have perfected the art of climate-controlled buildings. The whole island is bathed in this cozy sort of yellow light that emanates from the windows of people’s homes. 

Deershore is a popular tourist destination given its steady year-long snowfall, its high degree of commercialization, and the beautiful mountain ranges, Robin informs them. Nami was the most delighted of all the crew to find that the island was renowned for their  _ Ski Resort.  _

Staring up at the massive, sprawling building nestled at the base of a mountain, Luffy flings himself into the air and shouts. This place looks  _ amazing.  _

“This place looks  _ amazing!”  _ He exclaims, running headlong after Zoro and jumping up onto his back. 

Zoro curses but catches him because it’s  _ Zoro  _ and he’s great like that. Luffy jabs his cold nose on the exposed skin between Zoro’s neck and coat.

In response, Zoro yelps, “Cold!” and dumps him flat on his butt in the snow. 

Sanji picks Luffy up by the back of his coat because Luffy is too busy laughing to manage it himself. Sanji isn’t looking right at him. His single visible eye is focussed intently on Nami, who is still explaining something boring about check-in and check-out at the resort and their allowances and their rooms and, well. At that point, Luffy had stopped listening. (That’s why she’s his navigator, after all. Nami is good at worrying about that sort of thing.)

“None of that inside, Luffy. This place is classy and we’d actually like to stay here,” Sanji tells him, stern. 

The smoke from Sanji’s cigarette stands out even more against the cold winter air. The white puffs curl up and over and around his head like Nami’s clima-tact clouds. Luffy wonders if the smoke keeps him warmer than the rest of them in the cold, like drinking something warm while outside. Luffy himself has always run pretty cold—Ace and Sabo used to complain about his ice-block feet all the time when they were kids. Zoro runs warm, Luffy knows this from the past couple weeks spent sleeping tangled up together in a single small bunk (but he knows it even earlier than that, too, from naps taken on the deck, from half-collapsed treks back to the ship after battles hard won, leaning on each other for support.) 

There is a persistent ache in Luffy’s chest. He wants to know  _ Sanji’s _ warmth. 

He’s still holding him loosely by the collar so Luffy takes Sanji’s wrist in his hand with the intent to touch his skin, only to find that Sanji’s wearing gloves. 

Sanji gives him an odd look while Luffy stares intently at his hand. 

His hands are so… 

“Luffy?” Sanji asks. 

They’re  _ so…  _

“Cook,” Zoro interrupts, holding out three keys tagged with the same number: 346. “You’re with us,” he explains. He tosses one of the keys over to Luffy and he catches it out of the air. 

_He makes me feel..._

Luffy peers at Sanji from below the brim of his hat. (In the back of his throat, Luffy tastes last night’s grilled cheese sandwiches and something giddy and warm buzzes low in his abdomen.) 

The rest of the crew had already eagerly gone inside (Nami had made them all wait outside the resort while she haggled for prices and rooms.  _ I didn’t want the staff getting the wrong idea about all of you,  _ she had said, meaning that she didn’t want the staff to get the  _ right  _ idea, until after she had secured the best deal possible) and now only Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy remain. 

Sanji’s face is turning pink. It’s not from the cold. Luffy grins. 

* * *

After a long day of blissfully uncomplicated fun, Sanji is almost surprised by the anxiety that washes over him as soon as the door to their hotel room closes. It was almost easy to ignore the implications of the sleeping arrangements and their conversation last night… the _ promise  _ that it held. The whole day had seemed normal enough—as far as anything with this crew counted as  _ normal _ —but as soon as the door shuts, there’s a palpable shift in the atmosphere. 

The usual playful bickering and easy affection between Zoro and Luffy seems to shift in the blink of an eye. Stripping off snow-sodden clothing, Luffy trips over a heavy boot half-tied and goes crashing into Zoro, who immediately catches him with a practiced ease. 

“These are stupid,” Luffy huffs, shaking his feet wildly in an attempt to kick the shoes off. (Chopper had  _ insisted  _ on proper cold-weather attire if Luffy was going to spend the whole day out in the snow.  _ I’m not going to let you get frostbite because you want to wear sandals!  _ It was almost incredible to watch Chopper throw around his weight as the ship’s doctor. Luffy capitulated. Eventually.) 

Sanji notices it in Zoro’s face, first. The shift he makes to take Luffy’s flailing weight against his body is instinctual but undeniably intimate. The smile that cracks his face is startlingly affectionate when Luffy manages to send both boots careening at the opposite wall with a loud thud.

Luffy’s nose is red from the cold and he jams it into the side of Zoro’s neck, rocking onto his toes to do so. Unlike his response the entire day, Zoro allows this with a small smile and a mischievous glint in his eyes. 

He hoists Luffy up and over his shoulder in one movement, grinning like a fool. Luffy shrieks and pitches forward, laughing the whole way down as Zoro tosses him onto one of the two beds in the room. 

Sanji can feel his face burning and his gut clenching with nerves. 

“I’m—” their attention snaps to him in tandem. Sanji gestures helplessly at the bathroom and disappears behind the door before they have a chance to say anything else. 

Sanji catches himself against the sink and glares hard at his expression. 

_ Fuck.  _

His knuckles bleach white with the force of his grip on the counter top. 

_ Just experimentation,  _ he reminds himself.

Reminders of his kiss with Zoro—brief but furious in its intensity—sends heat and embarrassment spiraling down his core like a hot drink swallowed too quickly. It was so much—nearly  _ too much _ —and he’s not going to get taken in by that again. It was too uncontrolled, too quick and too consuming to be… conclusive. 

“Fuck. What am I doing?” he whispers down at his own hands. 

A voice that sounds suspiciously like Luffy supplies an answer from the back of his mind,  _ you’re doing whatever you want to,  _ it says. 

_ Uncomplicate it.  _ The order rolls through him like a wave. But it  _ is  _ complicated, is the thing. Even if he’s—(the words won’t come, not even in the privacy of his own mind)— _ like that _ , the two of them are already… what they are. As much as Zoro seemed to think otherwise, there isn’t a permanent place for Sanji there, even if… 

Sanji swallows around a rock. 

Even if he’s  _ gay.  _

The question of  _ liking both  _ lingers untouched at the back of his mind. He can’t begin to approach that idea—not yet. Not… not without  _ knowing. _ Because, really, Sanji  _ doesn’t know.  _ One night of drunkenly watching them and one instance of surrendering to a kiss that felt more like a fight doesn’t prove anything. It just  _ can’t.  _

_So uncomplicate it._

He’s jolted out of his thoughts when a knock rings out on the door. 

“Sanji,” Luffy calls. “Zoro and I are going to push the beds together.” 

_ "I _ _ diot!  _ Don’t just  _ announce  _ that. I said  _ ask,”  _ Zoro hisses. 

“Oh, right! Uh—Zoro wanted me to ask if you would be okay with it if we pushed the beds together. I think that’s dumb because—” 

There’s a distinct sound of someone’s fist colliding with someone’s head. Despite himself, Sanji feels a laugh bubble out of his lungs. 

He opens the door. 

* * *

Luffy is sprawled out over the newly conjoined beds, star-fished and beaming up at the roof. Much more tentatively, Sanji settles himself on the bench at the foot, half-turned away from them. He looks distinctly uncomfortable but there’s a different kind of tension there, too. It’s one that Zoro can’t really identify just by staring at him but… it’s not a tension unlike the one that settled around the cook’s shoulders just a handful of days ago in the woods. 

(And then Zoro had backed him up against a tree and watched that tension shatter apart into a thousand pieces at the first harsh touch of their lips together.)

Zoro’s thought process must occur to Luffy, because he smirks up at him all-too-knowing and drags him down by looping his rubbery arms around Zoro’s neck and  _ tugging.  _ He lands on top of him with a heavy grunt of air and Luffy beams as he settles between his thighs. 

“Sanji,” Luffy abruptly begins, starling Zoro and Sanji both. God, the cook looks like he’s stuck his tongue into an electrical outlet, his eyes are so wide.“Will you let us know? If you want to touch?” 

Something flickers across Sanji’s expression—the barest hint of a protest dying just behind his lips—and he gathers himself visibly. (It wouldn’t be something anyone else would notice, but Zoro’s been watching for it.) 

“Yes,” he sighs and it sounds like a barely-given acquiescence. 

This seems to be enough for Luffy. He smiles. (And  _ fuck— _ being so close to those smiles just doesn’t get old, in Zoro’s opinion. Everytime they make his heart trip over itself with emotion and hell, even if Sanji never says yes to more of this with them, having Luffy like this is more than enough—more luck than Zoro deserves, probably.)

Zoro kisses the smile right off his face, quickly breaching the welcoming seal of Luffy’s eager lips with his tongue. Luffy makes a satisfied humming sound and hooks his legs tight around Zoro’s waist at the ankles. It’s a little habit Luffy’s picked up when they fuck—he likes to  _ cling.  _

That night all those weeks ago feels so foreign, now. Zoro did not know Luffy’s body then— certainly not like he does  _ now.  _ That was just as much exploration on his part as it was Sanji’s, if he was going to be honest. But now? 

Now, this gets to be about  _ Sanji.  _

It was a graceless attempt to force the truth of the matter into the cook’s thick head: sex with men is  _ fantastic.  _ It was just as much a demonstration to Sanji as it was to Luffy:  _ I can make you feel good  _ and  _ watch me make him feel good.  _

Zoro glances up at Sanji for a brief moment and wills his attention across as much as he can.  _ Watch me pull him apart and know that we want to do this to you, too.  _

Luffy throws his teeth suddenly into the mix, catching Zoro’s bottom lip in a bite and laughing at startled hiss of pain. In direct retaliation, Zoro slides his mouth to the side of Luffy’s neck and begins to tease. Underneath him, Luffy sighs and squirms. 

Again, he glances at Sanji.  _ Look at your own desire, Shit-Cook.  _

Zoro slides his hands up the length of Luffy’s strong calves, gripping the back of his thighs and coming to settle tightly into the open sprawl of his legs, pressing them flush together. Luffy’s starting to grow hard against him and Zoro gives him the barest hint of friction to help things along. 

_ God, he feels—  _

Luffy gives a deep, satisfied sigh and arches into the contact, pleased but wanting more. They fucked around this morning before they got to the island—a couple of frantic hanjobs exchanged in the bathroom with a chair jammed up against the door handle. (Luffy had come with Sanji’s name tripping from his lips. The sound of it had sent Zoro sprawling into his own orgasm headfirst.) Despite that, Luffy’s desperation has been clearly written on him all day.

“What do you want?” Zoro murmurs, taking care to be loud enough that Sanji can hear. 

“Your mouth,” Luffy says, wholly unashamed—greedy and eager. 

Sanji gasps. Whether he’s startled by Luffy’s candor or by what he’s about to see, Zoro can’t say. But either way… 

_ Good.  _

As he eases his way down the length of Luffy’s body, Zoro is sure to deliberately catch Sanji’s eye again. His face is already so pink and they’ve barely done anything but kiss and his expression is completely unreadable. 

“What do  _ you  _ want?” Zoro asks him. 

Sanji gives a literal doubletake. A vicious jab of pride arcs through Zoro at having elicited such a strong reaction. (He can’t fucking forget the easy way Sanji  _ melted _ against him at the first sign of roughness—can’t forget the way he had broken _ so fucking easy  _ when Zoro pushed things… he can’t forget how hard it fucking made him, either. Maybe what he  _ needs  _ is something a bit more forceful—more direct.) 

“Does it matter?” Sanji responds. He sounds surprisingly put together. 

Zoro shrugs and finally manages to get Luffy’s pants undone. “Just curious,” he offers, tossing the shorts over his shoulder. 

Zoro doesn’t miss the soft, shocked inhalation when Luffy’s cock springs free, bobbing up to lie against his abdomen. Sanji’s visible eye hones in on it like a magnet. Zoro lingers, rubbing circles into the flesh of Luffy’s thighs and planting love-bites down the length of his bare hips. 

“Zoro,” Luffy groans, winding his hands into his hair and attempting to force him down. 

“Demanding,” Zoro chides him with a bit of heat in his voice. Then, abruptly, he takes Luffy’s cock as far back as he can in one swallow. 

The reaction is instantaneous. 

Luffy’s hips jackknife off the bed, thrusting hard once and making him gag at the sudden intrusion. A full body shiver travels up the length of his body and Zoro feels him melt with a satisfied sigh, beginning to circle his hips in shallow thrusts. 

“Zoro’s so good at that,” Luffy says, voice deep with arousal. (Zoro has the distinct feeling that Luffy isn’t saying that for his benefit.)

Sanji scoffs. “I don’t think that takes much skill.” 

_ Cocky asshole,  _ Zoro thinks among other more vicious things. He pulls off Luffy's dick with a filthy slurp and a pop, catching the was that Sanji recoils a little at the sound and flushes even redder with embarrassment, all his confident posturing and bitching gone in an instant. 

“Oh yeah? What the hell do you know, huh? Wanna get in here and show me what a cock-sucking champion you are, Cook?” he bites out. Sanji bristles and Zoro can hear the creaking of his clenched jaw. 

“Fuck you,” Sanji bites out. (And _huh,_ all of this fuss and he _still_ isn't leaving...)

“ _ Zoro,”  _ Luffy whines. 

_ Fucking cocky motherfucker…  _ An idea occurs to Zoro gradually, like the unspooling of thread; something to knock Sanji down a peg, something to startle him out of his ramrod-straight posture and stubbornness. 

Zoro leans in for another kiss (Luffy practically swallowing his tongue in his eagerness to get things moving) and breaks away to murmur against his lips, “Want to try something new?” 

Luffy’s eyes light up like firecrackers. With a snicker and a nod, he gives his assent. 

It’s the work of a few moments to rearrange the two of them—Zoro flat on his back and Luffy kneeling facing Sanji, legs spread on either side of Zoro’s chest. 

“Hey, genius, his—” Sanji gestures helplessly at Luffy’s erection, unable to say the word, “—isn’t anywhere near your mouth. What the fuck does  _ this _ accomplish?” 

“Why don’t you just watch and find out?” Zoro growls. A drunk Sanji was much less _difficult._

Luffy comes easily when Zoro tugs him by his hips, straddling his face. At the first touch of Zoro’s tongue to his hole, Luffy shudders and lets out a wordless stuttered shout. 

“Oh,” Sanji breathes out. “That’s…” 

“It feels—” Luffy’s voice cracks as Zoro licks around him, teasing the barest hint of pressure without quite breaching him, yet. “— _ so…”  _

He  _ keens,  _ needy and loud as Zoro pushes inside. He’s only done this a few times before-- not enough to be a champion at it or anything, but he knows enough to make it good. At least the partners he’s had before walked away happy.

Too eager, Luffy pushes down and for a harrowing moment, Zoro can’t breathe. With his grip on Luffy’s waist, he forces him up with a gasp and a curse. 

Luffy swears at the loss, thighs shaking with the effort of keeping himself crouched over Zoro's face. His back muscles ripple and tense with each gasp of air. He’s always so quick to become a mess—to turn himself over to the incessant tide of sensation and pleasure. It’s like Luffy’s never been taught  _ shame  _ or  _ embarrassment...  _ he just gives himself up and  _ feels.  _

His reactions are addicting. They leave Zoro’s blood buzzing. 

“Zoro, c’mon,” Luffy goads, pushing back down against his hands, trying to wriggle closer. His back bends into a brutal arch with the effort. It sends liquid heat pooling down to his groin. 

Zoro hums, smug with the weighted silence coming from the cook’s direction. 

“But I’m proving a point,” he says before promptly tugging Luffy’s ass back down to his mouth. 

* * *

It’s  _ good.  _ It’s  _ so  _ good. Oddly enough, the feeling itself isn’t that intense-- it's certainly not intense enough to make Luffy feel like screaming, and yet... But the knowledge of it? And the  _ exposure  _ of it? The sheer _nakedness_ of the position—the fucking  _ attention  _ Sanji is paying to ever single breath and blink… 

Well, with that, every swipe of Zoro’s tongue across his hole turns to fire. 

Sanji’s shoulders are squared like he’s waiting for an attack and Luffy _can't look away._ His eyes are sharp and honed in on every visible inch of him—and oh, Zoro’s made _damn sure_ __ that  _ every inch of him  _ is visible—and yet, Sanji's expression hardly gives anything away.

And then, for a second, just for the smallest flicker of a second, their eyes lock.

Luffy watches the breath rush out of Sanji and feels his own do the same. Neither of them looks away. 

_ Don’t look away,  _ Luffy thinks, desperate and skating across the edge of a blade right as Zoro fucks impossibly  _ deep  _ into him with his tongue.

_ “S-Sanji!”  _

The sound comes ripping out of his lungs, torn out of his chest with a white-hot arc of pleasure. His  _ legs  _ are  _ shaking— _ he can barely hold himself upright anymore. Instantly, Sanji  _ moves,  _ an aborted lurch forward that he catches before it can go anywhere and  _ fuck,  _ is Luffy desperate to touch any  _ part  _ of him, any part at  _ all—  _

Simultaneously, Zoro growls and grabs him  _ hard,  _ forcing a wickedly curled finger  _ inside  _ and  _ alongside his tongue  _ and—

Things happen very quickly. 

Zoro finds that fucking  _ spot  _ inside of him like a missile honing in on a target. Careening towards a swift and brutal orgasm, Luffy finds his own aching cock with one hand. He touches himself and that's _it,_ one single hand just isn’t enough to hold his shaking body up anymore. He collapses forward, awash in sensation, head hanging off the edge of the bed, crying out into the crook of his own elbow as he comes in a tidal-shockwave of sensation. 

Luffy comes down slowly, aftershocks like little electric currents throughout his limbs. His hand and the sheets beneath him are wet with his own ejaculate and he could not care  _ less,  _ because—

Sanji caught him. 

Luffy fell forward and there were  _ hands  _ on his shoulders, following him  _ down  _ as he dropped chest-first onto the sheets, bracing his weight and keeping him from falling off the edge entirely. Sanji caught him, steadied him, and  _ hasn’t pulled away. _

( _ Do you think about him inside you? I do.  _ Zoro had whispered it in the heat of the moment this morning, a quick and thoughtless admission between their mouths and Luffy had come _so quickly_. He and Zoro had taken each other in hand and Sanji was an undeniable _presence_ between them, around them, _waiting_ for them, and the fantasy of it was potent like a drug.)

Luffy  _ hand’t  _ thought about it, is the thing-- not until Zoro had _said it._

There is one hand on his shoulder and one hand impossibly gentle and warm on his neck, just  _ touching,  _ and Luffy _is thinking_ _ about it now.  _

Zoro is chuckling and rearranging himself so that his weight drops down onto Luffy’s back. The insistent curve of his dick is pressed tight against Luffy’s thighs and ass. Zoro rocks against him slowly, just  g rinding.  Luffy can’t see Sanji’s face—not at this angle and not with Sanji’s hair covering it like a curtain, but he can hear him swallow and he can feel the way his hands  _ twitch  _ where they are touching. 

“Point proven,” Sanji says after a moment. 

Zoro practically  _ dissolves  _ into laughter. Helpless to it, Luffy finds himself overcome with laughter, too, giggling with an open mouth. When his limbs start to feel less like jelly, Luffy raises his head to look at Sanji and grins. 

“You touched,” he says, watching Sanji’s expression carefully (and eagerly, too. So, so eager. There are so many butterflies in his gut, Luffy feels like he could fly away at any moment.) 

“You were going to fall.” 

“But you caught me,” Luffy says again, because this is very important. Carefully, he removes Sanji’s hand from his neck and tangles their fingers together, gripping tight. “Sanji takes care of me,” he says, voice firm as steel. 

And there it is—the same expression on his face that Luffy saw just last night, the same hint of shyness, the same half-blush and anxious eyes. 

“Fuck,” Zoro whispers, thrusting particularly hard against the bare skin of Luffy’s back. “Luffy, can I—?” 

“Yeah, please—yes,” Luffy breathes. Zoro leaps off the bed and goes rushing to the bathroom—for lube, probably—and Luffy scrambles up onto his knees, kneeling half-over Sanji, hands still intertwined. 

He doesn’t kiss Sanji—partly because he wants Sanji to tell him when he’s ready and partly because it isn’t about what he wants, right now (it’s about getting Sanji to come to them on his own, to decide that he wants this, too)—but he does press their foreheads together, leaning gently. 

“Luffy,” Sanji breathes, looking lost. 

“It’s okay,” he reassures him, having to speak around the impossible weight of all that he feels for his nakama, for his cook, for his  _ Sanji  _ that has suddenly filled up his throat—“We want this with you, too, you know.” 

Something shudders behind Sanji’s eyes and a punched-out sound almost like a dry  _ sob  _ trips out into the scant distance between their faces, reined in just as fast as it escaped. Sanji clenches his eyes closed. He bites his lip hard. They’re so close that it makes Luffy go nearly cross-eyed in his every effort to catalogue each flicker of movement and expression. It feels impossible, what passes between them in this moment. It feels  _ incredible.  _

Luffy is aware of Zoro’s footsteps on the floor. He feels him settle back onto the bed and touch his side gently. He’s watching, too. 

Sanji leans against Luffy and breathes.

“We want to take care of you, too,” Luffy tells him. 

“I’m not—” Sanji exhales, ragged, each syllable frayed like abused fabric. 

“You’re  _ you,”  _ Zoro says, steel in his voice and  _ damn,  _ does Luffy  _ love him—hell,  _ how he loves  _ them—  _

With a sound even more like a sob, Sanji sways into Luffy even as he pulls away, shocked and meeting Zoro’s gaze over Luffy’s shoulder. Luffy wraps an arm around him, tight but not trapping, and it feels like that first night when Zoro showed them both the truth of  _ this--  _ of pleasure taken and pleasure  _ given _ . 

“Stop thinking so much,” Zoro says, stern but not unkind. 

Two slick fingers press at the sensitive entrance of his ass. Luffy arches into the contact, forcing himself to relax for the slick ( _ incredible, addictive)  _ intrusion even as his still mostly-flaccid dick twitches with over-sensitivity. Zoro pushes in with that insane sort of skill he has and it starts to feel intense again almost immediately as he seeks out that  _ spot.  _

“Luffy, how do you want it?” Zoro asks, stroking a hand flat across the expanse of his bare chest, reverent over scar tissue. 

Luffy thinks about Sanji even as Sanji gently untangles himself from his embrace, settling back down (but not too far away) onto the bench at the foot of the bed. He’s visibly hard in his pants but still so hesitant— _ why? _

_ Because he likes to watch,  _ intuition supplies. Luffy is struck with the simplicity of the answer, with the fucking  _ honesty  _ of it. Now that he’s thought it, now that he’s  _ realized,  _ it’s clearly written all over Sanji’s face and his body… 

_ He likes to watch.  _

_ He likes to—  _

“On my back,” Luffy supplies, already flipping over. He dangles his head off the edge of the bed, staring at Sanji upside-down. He’s almost in Sanji’s lap, like this.

_ He likes—  _

“Like this,” Luffy breathes. Slowly, Sanjis pupils dilate until nearly all the blue is gone from his eyes. Zoro slots in between his legs, his hands an anchoring touch on his thighs. Luffy hooks his ankles together, wrapping himself tight around Zoro as he begins to push in. “Just like this.”

Together, they move. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who knew that people could even survive wanting each other this badly?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *trips down three flights of stairs* hhhhh,...  
> a big yee haw to my beta, [starrypier](https://starrypier.tumblr.com/)  
> (**TW: minor panic attack**)

_ This is too much.  _ It’s  _ so much,  _ Sanji realizes. Luffy’s head is nearly bumping into his lap with every thrust Zoro makes and  _ holy fuck,  _ are those thrusts  _ powerful.  _ When Luffy’s eyes aren’t screwed shut in pleasure, they’re staring directly at him and Sanji feels like he’s looking right at his soul.

He can’t stop his hands from twitching, nearly vibrating with the need to touch—fuck, he’s  _ shaking.  _ Unconsciously, he’s leaned up onto his knees at the edge of the bed, hands hovering anxious just over Luffy’s bare shoulders, his neck, his face.  _ God,  _ the urge to touch is all he knows in this moment. 

Zoro must have done something amazing inside of Luffy because all of a sudden his head is dropping limp between his shoulders, forehead thunking against Sanji’s thighs, screaming a litany of curses against the fabric of his too-tight pants. 

His dick is so hard he can feel his own heartbeat in it. Hell, Sanji can hardly  _ breathe  _ for how fucking  _ turned on he is.  _

And all throughout, Zoro  _ stares at him.  _ And then, when it can’t possibly get any worse, Zoro starts  _ talking.  _

“It’s hot, isn’t it?” Zoro’s out of breath, his voice gone all rough and sinister. The sound of it swallows him whole, bringing his brain to this fuzzy place where all that matters are the aching gasps Luffy puffs out against the fabric of his pants and the words leaving Zoro’s lips. 

“Look at him,” Zoro commands, as though Sanji wasn’t already completely and utterly transfixed by every inch of Luffy. 

Holding him with one hand on his hip, Zoro slides his other hand across the length of Luffy’s arched back. Luffy visibly shudders, fingers tightening around Sanji’s and  _ oh— _ when did he start holding Luffy’s hands? 

Zoro rests his hand on the back of Luffy’s neck, forcing him down, pressing his head firmly into Sanji’s lap and  _ fuck, fuck, fuck _ —

Sanji hisses involuntarily as Zoro’s influence presses the crown of Luffy’s head against his aching cock. God, he’s  _ burning up,  _ he’s  _ dying  _ and— 

“He’s good with his mouth,” Zoro comments. The hand gripping Luffy (holding him down and pressing him into Sanji’s lap, holy  _ shit _ ) rubs idle circles into his hairline. Luffy moans a garbled, blissed-out sound. It’s caught somewhere between affirmation and arousal. Feeling electrified down to every single nerve in his body, Sanji slaps a hand hastily over his own mouth, holding whatever sounds might escape inside. 

“Right, Captain? Want to show him?” Zoro’s expression is just… Sanji tries to close his eyes against the visual onslaught that is Zoro  _ fucking Luffy,  _ calling him  _ Captain  _ in that  _ voice,  _ and looking at  _ Sanji  _ like he wants to  _ fuck him too,  _ but finds that his eyes have stopped cooperating. He couldn’t look away if he was at gunpoint. 

“ _ Yeah,”  _ Luffy gasps. “Wanna show you,  _ Sanji—”  _ Zoro presses all the way in, hips flush to Luffy’s ass and just…  _ sits there.  _ Luffy cries out and starts to  _ writhe  _ between them, craning and contorting to try and get Zoro to  _ move  _ and Sanji…

Sanji  _ wants.  _

“Get yourself out, Sanji,” Zoro says. It’s a perfect mirror to that night all those weeks ago. He twitches in his pants, so hard it hurts and he  _ can’t— _

“I…” 

Between them, Luffy squirms, obviously frustrated.  “ _ Zoro,”  _ Luffy growls out and isn’t that  _ new?  _

“Get yourself  _ out,  _ Sanji,” Zoro repeats. 

It happens in an instant. Luffy bends his back in a painful (sinful, so fucking  _ sinful,  _ the way he moves like this) arc and slaps both hands down on Sanji’s shoulders. With a sound that’s only comparable to a snarl, Luffy uses his grip on Sanji to leverage himself entirely off of Zoro’s dick. He settles with his knees on either side of Sanji’s legs, sitting square in his lap. The pressure is— 

_ So good, not enough, so, so good  _ and  _ oh, he’s wet, he’s dripping lube onto my pants— _

“Hey!” Zoro yelps, but Sanji’s barely paying attention to him. Not with Luffy, naked and glistening with a fine sheen of sweat, sitting on his groin. 

Taking his sweet time, Luffy drapes his arms across Sanji’s shoulders, linking his hands together behind his neck and leaning in. Their lips ghost, barely touching. Sanji shivers violently from head to toe. 

“Wanna see something cool?” Luffy breathes against him. His mouth is dry, he can’t respond, hands fluttering useless at Luffy’s side, afraid to touch (afraid he’ll  _ lose  _ whatever is happening, here). Instead, he nods. Luffy grins, shark-like. 

“I’ve never tried this before,” Luffy admits. Zoro fumes, silent and still glaringly erect just behind them. “So you’ll stop me, if you don’t like it?” 

Zoro grumbles his assent. 

“Watch him, Sanji,” Luffy whispers against his lips. 

Zoro’s eye meets his own over their Captain’s shoulders. Luffy rolls his head slowly side to side. He exhales through his nose. 

It hits like a punch to the gut. 

Zoro makes this  _ sound,  _ this low, shocked thing pulled sudden from his chest and he sways forward on his knees. Although he sees it, Sanji can hardly fucking  _ process  _ it. Luffy’s will is too consuming. 

Conqueror's haki is thrown over them like a lead blanket. 

Sanji’s touching him now, holding on for dear-fucking- _ life  _ to Luffy’s waist, breathing in immense gulping swallows of air. It isn’t enough. His head swims with the smell of sex and Luffy and Zoro and it _isn’t enough_. Sanji’s hyperventilating. He knows it. Luffy feels different in his lap, now. He’s not the languid, pleasure-drunk man he was moments before. Now his body is as hot as fire in Sanji’s arms. He feels hot enough to scald, even through the fabric of Sanji’s shirt. His body is all hard, taut lines and easy confidence. 

_ Ruler,  _ some primal and animal part of Sanji’s mind comments. 

(Fuck, he might be  _ crying.)  _

“Zoro,” Luffy says. His voice bleeds authority. Indomitable will is suffocating. Sanji is going to die here, he thinks. Zoro, for his part, looks no better off. Sweat is almost dripping off of him. His shoulders are shaking, his hands twitching at his side. He visibly swallows.

“Yes?” It’s the softest Sanji has ever heard his voice. 

“Come.” 

Zoro  _ wails.  _ The sound is equal parts blindingly arousing and so instinctively terrifying that Sanji  _ jerks  _ in Luffy’s arms with an awful little squeak of a sound.  Zoro comes untouched at Luffy’s word alone, bent nearly double with the force of an orgasm that just doesn’t seem to stop coming. His whole body shakes with it. 

(Sanji feels his own orgasm approaching with blinding speed. His tongue tingles in his mouth with adrenaline.) 

Just as quickly as it came, the shroud of haki is thrown off.  Luffy is scrambling out of Sanji’s lap, reaching for Zoro with short little bursts of pleased laughter.

_ Don’t—  _

(Every millimetre of space that grows between Sanji and Luffy is like a widening wound. With startling speed, Sanji’s world narrows down to all the spaces that they are no longer touching. He feels…  _ he feels… _ )

Luffy gathers Zoro’s face between his hands and peppers him with kisses. He’s speaking too, but the words are completely lost to him. 

_ Don’t go—  _

“--anji?”

His breathing never slowed down, did it? Is that why he’s so lightheaded all of the sudden? (He feels bare and empty now that they aren’t touching him, even though he’s still fully clothed.) 

_ Get it together!  _ But his hands won’t stop shaking and these awful, hitching little noises won’t stop  _ coming out of his mouth—  _

“Sanji!” 

“Oh shit, Luffy—”

He sways forward precariously, lost to a torrent of sudden overwhelming  _ feeling _ , and it is Zoro who catches him. 

* * *

Zoro meets Luffy’s eyes in a shocked moment of silence and something very clear passes between them:  _ we fucked up.  _

In seconds, they are a flurry of limbs. 

When Sanji falls forward, he falls straight into Zoro’s chest (cum all over his skin aside) and proceeds to absolutely fall to pieces. He’s curled in on himself, both hands tangled in his own hair, looking like he’s a million miles away. His eyes are unfocused, his breath is fast, strained and shallow. Worst of all, he’s fucking  _ shaking.  _

And he’s soaking up Zoro’s touch like fucking  _ sunlight.  _

For all that he’s quivering and making these horrible distressed sounds, he’s doing the exact opposite of what Zoro would expect him to do. Instead of flinching away, instead of fighting and posturing in a moment of weakness, Sanji is  _ plastering  _ himself to every available inch of Zoro’s own body, huddling into every touch like it’s the only thing keeping him together. 

Sanji’s knuckles are white with how tightly he’s gripping his own hair. He did that, too, that first night. All wide-eyed and pulling away from Luffy, terrified of what he’d felt and what he’d done. And then, in the forest, arching against Zoro even as he pulled away. Then, that final release of tension at the end, when Sanji melted into his kiss like he was just waiting for an excuse to do so all along. A whole book of all the signs Zoro missed, flickering through his head like a nightmare. 

_ We fucked up.  _

Luffy comes in on Sanji’s other side and together, he and Zoro pin him in tight between them. Luffy is shushing him, putting tender hands over every inch of Sanji’s available skin—which isn’t much, considering the stubborn idiot is still completely clothed. Zoro rolls a bit, pressing Sanji’s back flush with his chest and wrapping an arm around his chest like a tight vice. He throws a leg over Sanji’s for good measure, blanketing him in. Like if he could just hold him hard enough, he would be able to steady whatever is flying apart inside of him. Luffy sandwiches Sanji in, pulling his head to his chest and curving around him like a closed parenthesis. 

A series of careful little touches and together, they manage to pry Sanji’s fingers out of his hair. Luffy never stops shushing him. Zoro hooks his chin over the top of Sanji’s head and just…  _ waits.  _

A few minutes later, the shaking and the sounds subside. A beat or two after that and the cook falls completely boneless between them. Zoro hadn’t even been aware of how much tension Sanji was carrying until it was gone. 

“Thank you,” Luffy whispers, tucking the words carefully up against Sanji’s hairline. 

_ How did it get so fucked up?  _

There is no afterglow, only an aching guilt and a gnawing sense of  _ wrong.  _

_ Did I push too hard? Was what Luffy did too much?  _

With the stirring of a suddenly alerted animal, Sanji moves. He stops breathing. Zoro can practically feel the tension work its way back into the cook’s body; a coil winding tighter and tighter in his arms. 

Sanji curses, “... _ shit,”  _ abrupt and vehement, practically dripping with anger. 

_ Probably self-directed, knowing the cook.  _

Zoro hums and holds him tighter. 

“I—this… I’m— _ shit, shit, shit,”  _ he whispers, each word sounding more and more agonized. His hands jerk up, moving to his own hair and—- 

Luffy snatches them up by the wrists as soon as they get even  _ close.  _ Holding him still.  _ No more of that.  _

“What do you need?” Luffy asks. His voice is barely louder than a whisper. 

_ “I’m—”  _ And  _ fuck,  _ is Sanji crying? A wet gasp followed by, “I’m  _ sorry.”  _

Against him, Sanji’s shoulders jump and quiver unmistakably. 

_ Fuck.  _

“Don’t.” It spills from Zoro’s lips without conscious input, probably far too forceful. “Don’t apologize.”

“Sanji...  _ Sanji,  _ I’m sorry. Tell me what you need,” Luffy pleads, voice just as aching. 

_ “Fuck,  _ I don’t  _ know!”  _ he wails. 

_ How did we fuck up so badly?  _

Luffy makes a high sound, wounded and breathless, and wiggles impossibly closer. 

“This was never...this was never going to work,” Sanji confesses, voice wet and broken. “I can’t… I’m… What am I  _ doing? _ ” He laughs like clinking shards of broken glass. “There isn’t space for me, here.” 

“You’re wrong.” Zoro breathes out slow and steady, trying to slow all the words that want to come flying out from behind his teeth. “You’re so wrong.” 

“Sanji, we’re a  _ three.  _ All of us. Zoro and Sanji and I, together.” 

“No, Luffy it doesn’t—it doesn’t  _ work  _ like that,” Sanji weeps, tremors returning. 

“Yes it does!” Luffy, too, sounds like he’s going to cry. “It  _ is  _ like that!” 

And Zoro should have known, really. He knew it that night in the sick-bay, watching Sanji restrain himself at a painful knife’s edge. He knew it in the forest—knew it in the way Sanji opened up and melted against him at the first sign of roughness. He knew it in the way he folded to a scratch here or there and the little,  _ is that an order?  _

Zoro  _ knew  _ and he should have known  _ better.  _

“We fucked up,” he says. There’s no use getting around it. “Cook. We fucked up.”

Sanji laughs again, that awful, bitter non-laugh. “I told you, it was never going to—”

_ “No,”  _ Zoro says it as firm as he can manage, as if he can press the truth of it straight through Sanji’s thick skull. “We weren’t paying attention. Not like we should have.”

“I don’t—”

“Sanji,” he cuts him off. “You did  _ good.”  _

A little shiver.  _ There it is.  _

“I—”

_ “Really  _ good,” Luffy adds. The glint in his eyes tells Zoro he’s caught on. They won’t make the same mistake twice.  _ God, how could they have been so stupid?  _

It’s the  _ Cook.  _ He spends every waking moment catering to everybody else’s every need and whim, only to drink up their pleasure in return. Selfless to a fault.  Giving to a fault. The unspoken caretaker of the crew.

_ (Tell the other's they'll have to find another cook—)  _

“Will you let us give it to you? What you need?” 

This time, a full body twitch. A little sound. 

“I don’t…”

Zoro takes a deep breath. He lets it go. 

“You want Luffy to order you around? Want me to tell you you’re good? Want us to be rough, like how I  _ took _ you against that tree? Did you want me to  _ fuck you  _ there, pinned like a butterfly?” 

The sound  Sanji makes is _unreal_.

“Did you like it? Watching me make Zoro come?” Luffy adds. He shifts—Zoro can’t see to what end—and then Sanji  _ jolts  _ against him, pressing back into his chest and letting out another  _ sound.  _

“Tell him, Sanji.” 

_ “Yeah,  _ fuck,” he breathes, panting. 

“Yeah  _ what?”  _ Zoro presses, cock stirring against Sanji’s back. He rolls his hips, just to let him  _ feel  _ it. 

Sanji lets out the smallest little moan. Growls and snaps back, “I  _ liked  _ it, shithead!” 

Luffy laughs, and announces, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Resting against his chest like he is, Zoro can’t see Sanji’s face. But he can see the blush that slowly works its way down the back of his neck until it hides under his shirt collar. 

_ His stupid fucking clothes,  _ Zoro curses. Decisively, he yanks back the collar of the shirt to  _ watch.  _

The slick sound of their mouths parting. Sanji gasping, “Wait—” and Luffy sliding a hand into his blonde hair, doing nothing of the sort. Sanji shivers in Zoro's arms. It’s a full bodied thing, jumping like an electric current between Zoro’s skin and the back of Sanji’s shirt. 

“No more waiting,” Luffy decides as he breaks away to smear kisses (those messy, open mouthed ones that burn like a brand) down the downright  _ sinful  _ line of Sanji’s pale throat. 

“What do you want?” Zoro asks, dying to know. He slowly trails a hand up the length of Sanji’s throat, not a threat but a  _ gift.  _ Pressing just enough with his hand, Zoro leans in to tease the sensitive skin of Sanji’s ear. “Tell us. We’ll take care of you.” 

While Sanji stutters and dances around any kind of answer, Zoro starts to work on those damn  _ buttons.  _ To his utter fascination, the blush spreads all the way down the cook’s chest. He can’t resist the impulse to trace it with his hands. 

“I don’t—” a protest dies halfway out of his lips when Luffy slides his deft tongue over Sanji’s bare, heaving chest. 

“You do,” Zoro insists. 

It’s nothing but a moment’s work to worm his hand between Luffy and the cook. Cruelly, he presses his palm harsh against the place where Sanji’s zipper meets his straining erection.

Sanji  _ jackknifes  _ up with a tortured sound, already more than half-hard for them again. It’s partly stunning how he shifts gears so quickly into aroused again, yet partly expected from the shitty-ero-cook, but even so, the knowledge of it alone is going to be something that stars in Zoro’s fantasies for  _ weeks.  _ Zoro wonders, not for the first time, how long Sanji could _go_ for... He shivers at the possibilities.

Zoro clicks his tongue, mock-disapproving. “You’re so  _ easy,”  _ Zoro tells him. Let’s the sound rumble deep in his chest. “I wonder if you’d open up that easy, too. I bet you’d take it so good for us.” 

“Do you think about it?” Luffy asks. “Zoro inside you?” 

_ “ _ N-no! Yes— _ fuck— _ ” 

“He’s so big.” Luffy’s lust-blown eyes flicker to meet Zoro’s own over Sanji’s shoulder. “You can just feel him everywhere when he’s inside.” 

_ “Oh  _ sweet Blues— _ that’s filthy—”  _ he’s squirming between them, this liminal thing buzzing with undecided energy, with all the weight of his unarticulated wants. 

“Or do you think of being inside him?” Zoro presses the words against the nape of Sanji’s neck, dewy with perspiration, and the natural taste of him is  _ intoxicating.  _ “He’s so fucking tight, you’d never believe it. And after you’ve come inside him?” 

Sanji whines or maybe he whimpers, the sound high and reedy and fragile. 

_ Break, break, break,  _ something animal in Zoro begins to chant. 

“It’s wet like you wouldn’t  _ believe.”  _

_ “Please!”  _ It’s a shout that cracks halfway down the middle like a sob, all unfettered  _ wanting  _ and  _ needing  _ and  _ begging  _ and—

Luffy’s eyes snap to his. 

“Zoro,” Luffy—no, not Luffy—his  _ Captain  _ begins, “You’re going to finish fucking me and you’re going to come inside.” His dark, dark eyes turn to Sanji and Luffy snatches up his chin in a firm hand, forcing the Cook’s eyes to meet his own. 

“And then it’s  _ Sanji’s  _ turn.” 

* * *

As hesitant as Luffy is to break away from Sanji for even a single moment, the position that they settle into leaves Sanji lying on his back underneath him with Zoro taking him from behind. This way, their bodies are pressed nearly flush together and the joint weight of both Luffy and Zoro can serve as a reminder: _you're ours_. 

“We want you,” Luffy presses the words against the skin over Sanji’s heart. And if Luffy knows anything—and it’s his nakama, and he doesn’t miss anything when it comes to them, and _won’t_ miss anything ever again—so he adds, “You’re so  _ good.”  _

Sanji’s hips jump and his voice hitches and his hands twitch on Luffy’s hips. 

_ Can't believe we missed this!  _

“ _ God,  _ Luffy, you can’t just  _ say that,”  _ he gets out and Luffy  _ sees  _ the violent struggle to win back his control. 

“Can and I will.” He seals it with a kiss (a whole lot of tongue and a little bit of teeth, just how Zoro kissed him that very first night) and a curl of heat races through his gut when Sanji responds, kissing him back with just as much desperation as Luffy feels.

“Shitty Captain,” and his voice sounds wet again, thick with emotion. 

Sanji, for his part, looks like he can’t quite believe that this is how this ended up. His face is still splotchy-red in places from crying, his eyelashes damp, dark, and clumped together. But it’s perfect because it’s  _ his Sanji  _ and this couldn’t be anything but what it is— _ perfect.  _

“You’re so, so good,” Luffy tells him. He’s quick to encourage the involuntary jump of Sanji’s hips into a full-blown grind. His pants— _ how are those still on— _ get in the way and—

Zoro lifts Luffy’s lower half up and out of the way, leaving Luffy’s chest smashed awkwardly tight against Sanji’s, and in one swift  _ yank  _ he makes Sanji’s  _ obnoxious, awful  _ pants disappear. 

Luffy gasps. Sanji’s dick is  _ pretty.  _

He’s long (just about as long as Zoro, if not quite as thick around) and flushed so dark that it aches to look at him. The head is glistening wet—positively  _ dripping  _ a slow trail of clear fluid—and Luffy’s mouth  _ waters.  _ He shoves their groins together painfully tight, the friction  _ so good  _ between them that they groan in unison. Hot skin flush against hot skin, so searing-warm together that it nearly burns. 

“Next time I want to taste you, okay?” Luffy just might die if he doesn’t. Only the promise of Zoro’s hands on his hips and the ghosting of his blunt head against his hole is enough to stave off that particular desire. 

“Not until I get to taste  _ you,”  _ Sanji replies almost viciously and  _ oh.  _

_ Oh  _ that’s a  _ thought.  _

It’s so much of a  _ thought  _ that Luffy barely manages to register the embarrassed wrinkling of Sanji’s mouth and the way his cheeks flush from pink to  _ red.  _ Above them, Zoro cackles. 

And then he slides home. 

The first blunt  _ push  _ of Zoro’s crown into him is always Luffy’s favorite part. The burn of the stretch, the insistent pressure, and the eventual muscle-deep surrender at the part where he’s widest… 

Sanji catches Luffy’s bone-deep moan with his open mouth. He tastes only a little bit like how his cigarettes smell and then mostly like something spicy and something  _ sweet,  _ too. The intimate knowledge of what  _ Sanji—mine, my Sanji— _ tastes like is thrilling to the core. 

The thing about this position is that Zoro manages to catch Luffy’s  _ best spot  _ with every thrust. In moments he’s insensate, babbling anything and everything he can think of against the skin of Sanji’s chest—arching hard into Sanji’s perfect hands (his  _ treasure,  _ Luffy thinks, giddy and dizzy and drunk all at the same time.) 

_ He’s touching me with his treasure.  _

“Yes,  _ yes,  _ anywhere,  _ Luffy,  _ I’ll touch you  _ anywhere,”  _ Sanji answers him and  _ oh— _ he must have said that out-loud. 

“Sanji—” Zoro’s voice is rhythmic, staccato with every thrust inside of him “ _ — _ his mouth—he likes—your fingers—put them—” 

_ Zoro, brilliant, perfect Zoro, Zoro, yes—  _ “Yes, yes,  _ yes,  _ Sanji,  _ give me,  _ please, please—”

And it’s so good when Sanji slides two fingers past his lips and into his gasping mouth. It’s so good that the world whites out for a little bit and even  _ Zoro— _ so rigidly controlled—moans outright at what he must see. 

“You’re  _ incredible,”  _ Sanji whispers. Slowly, he flexes his long fingers, stretching Luffy's wet lips wide in the corners and stroking his tongue with reverent appreciation even as Luffy drools around the intrusion. 

“ _ Shit,  _ I can’t last much longer—Luffy—” Zoro gasps and it’s okay, it’s perfect, because it’s exactly what he wanted and so Luffy tightens around him in just the way Zoro likes the most. 

With a guttural, “ _ fuck,”  _ Zoro comes inside of him. 

(And thank  _ every single god  _ that Luffy doesn’t believe in that his eyes were open, because watching Sanji watch _Zoro_ come? It’s like  _ magic.  _ Like catching a lightning strike and a shooting star at the same moment.) 

And really, just as easy as that, Luffy comes. 

* * *

Zoro  _ just— _ and now  _ I’m  _ gonna _ — _

Coherent threads of thought escape from him like barely-heard whispers. Luffy is a boneless mess of post-orgasm shivering aftershocks, panting hot and heavy against his skin. Sanji's fingers are still wet with his Captain's spit. 

“Your turn,” Zoro—and who  _ knew  _ that Zoro could be this  _ beautiful— _ says, wrestling him up by the shoulders.  __

(Who knew that people could even survive wanting each other this badly?)

Sanji couldn’t have prepared himself for this, even if he had a million years. And he certainly never would have pictured this kind of attention being lavished onto him. In all honesty, his fantasies were never focused on him—he couldn’t picture himself as the focus of anyone’s attention, certainly not their _sexual_ attention, for long. It was always about how he would please others, what he would do for them and what he could give.

Never had he been the focus of anyone’s desire quite the way he is  _ now.  _

It’s addicting. 

Zoro gathers him up from underneath Luffy with his burning-hot hands and kisses him like he’s trying to crawl inside Sanji’s soul. It’s all he can do to melt into it and bury his hands in Zoro’s hair, carried along like a tide and _loving it,_ even as Zoro's teeth scrape none-too-gently across his lower lip. 

“Fuck, Sanji. You’re so—” Zoro breaks off with a low sound and gets a hand around Sanji’s aching, dripping cock. 

He cries out, shuddering into the contact, spine bent in an awkward curve as the touch ricochets through him. It's absurd but-- 

Sanji had almost forgotten his own arousal. 

“Sanji,  _ please,”  _ Luffy whines into the sheets, dragging his attention away from Zoro's tight-perfect-yes-yes- _yes_ grip on his dripping cock. And  _ oh—  _

Luffy’s fingers are disappearing into his own hole, fucking himself feverishly on his own hands, sticky and shining with cum— _ Zoro’s come— _ and it’s  _ everything.  _ The sight is  _ everything.  _ Sanji's dick _jumps_ in Zoro's hand, drooling a thick gush of precum out and over his fingers in the most embarrassing way. 

_ Easy, _ Sanji recalls-- _he called you easy--_ and it's almost absurd how much hotter that simple taunt gets him. 

Zoro’s voice is dark and oppressive when he brings his lips to murmur hot and insistently against his ear,  “He’s so fucking messy for you—fucking sloppy with it.” Sanji makes an embarrassingly high-pitched sound in response, his knees almost failing him where he kneels on the bed. 

And Zoro,  _ goddamn Zoro,  _ gets his hands around his hips and starts grinding his sticky, flaccid dick against Sanji’s back and it’s— _ so, so fucking nasty and so, so goddamn good.  _

“You better hurry up and get in there before he gets impatient,” Zoro chuckles. “Wouldn't want to keep Sencho waiting, would you?”

“You’re a dirty fucking bastard,” Sanji gasps, a single unsteady hand landing gently—reverently—on Luffy’s exposed ass, tentatively groping. 

Luffy’s fingers make insistently wet, slick sounds as he fucks in and out of himself, puffing out needy little noises into the sheets. A trail of pearlescent cum drips past his twitching rim, racing down the sweaty skin of his inner thigh and it becomes instantly, alarmingly clear that Sanji just  _ isn’t going to last.  _

“Saaa-aanji,” Luffy moans. 

_ I can’t do this—  _

Zoro presses up against his back, manhandling him into position and  _ oh fuck—  _

_ This is really happening—! _

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Zoro growls, holding him bruisingly tight by the hips.  __

And, perhaps, in the most fitting of ways, it is this barb that manages to firmly dispel the uproarious doubt clamoring inside of Sanji’s head once and for all. 

“Fucking  _ nothing,”  _ Sanji snarls the rebuttal over his shoulder. 

With tender, achingly gentle hands—the only way Sanji could _ever_ touch a lover, woman or otherwise—he extracts Luffy’s frantic fingers from himself. And then— 

_ “Yes, yes, yes, yes, Sanji—!”  _

He slides inside with one insistent  _ push,  _ only stopping when his hips press flush against Luffy’s ass and the litany of chanting dissolves into a bone-deep sigh. 

It is, in short, the single greatest feeling in the known world.  _ Hot—wet—tight—yes—perfect, fucking—  _

“ _ Fuck,  _ Cook… You two look…” Zoro trails off, shuffling around in an awkward slide across the bed. He settles down by Luffy’s head, propped up lazily on his side like some great predatory beast at rest, eyes fixed on Sanji’s own. “Luffy,” and his voice goes a little soft around the edges, almost giddy, “Luffy he looks  _ so fucking good  _ in you.” 

A sound that is trying very hard to be a laugh but doesn’t quite have the breath to make it there tumbles out of Luffy’s lips. He cranes his head back to stare over his shoulder, pinning Sanji in place with a wide, easy grin and a face flushed nearly crimson with desire. 

“ _ Heh— _ told you that Sanji would,” Luffy replies. 

What little tether that remains over his control snaps like a thread tasked with suspending the weight of an anchor. Sanji’s chest comes down onto Luffy’s back, supporting himself just-shy of crushing him with a single arm braced under Luffy’s chest. He curls around him like an open-parenthesis, lips exactly where he wants them: pressed flush to Luffy’s ear. The position gets him just  _ that much  _ deeper, enough to elicit a delighted little moan and a full-body shiver. 

“I’m going to move now,” Sanji whispers, sounding like he’s half-way to coming already. 

(And, truly, he is—how could he  _ not be?  _ Luffy is an inferno inside, brutally tight and slick with cum and lubricant both and  _ gripping  _ in the most  _ maddening way  _ and it’s like  _ nothing  _ in the whole world could ever be.) 

“Fuck me, Sanji!” Luffy demands, as greedy and unabashed here as he is in all places. 

Sanji rolls his hips in the slowest drag he can manage without outright holding entirely still. His body screams with each inch of him that retreats and it  _ sings  _ with every inch that he grinds back inside, maintaining a punishingly slow pace. To keep himself distracted enough that he doesn’t come  _ immediately,  _ he laves his tongue across the shell of Luffy’s ear—an indulgent little motion he has been  _ dreaming  _ about since this whole wanting-aching-needing thing between them started.

“Holy  _ shit,  _ you were  _ made  _ to fuck,” Zoro croaks and Sanji can’t help the way his hips jump at the praise. 

“Faster,  _ harder,  _ Sanji— _ Sanji,”  _ Luffy whines. He’s moving in desperate little hitches of his hips, grinding himself against the mattress, and Zoro must take pity on him and give him a hand because Luffy practically  _ sings  _ in relief the next moment, melting boneless into Sanji’s arms. 

He gasps against Luffy’s ear and is rewarded with a full body shiver. “I don’t—don’t know how much longer I can last,” he admits, eyes burning with it. 

“‘S okay,” Luffy babbles, arching against him and squeezing the arm Sanji’s got braced around his chest. “Next time _—_ _heh_ _—_ next time we’ll go for  _ hours _ .” 

_ Next time—  _

( _ I… wouldn’t be opposed to… experimenting, I guess—)  _

And here Luffy is, naked and on all-fours under him, gripping him with his insides like he never intends to let go and promising him a  _ next time— _

_ “Oh,  _ Luffy— _ please,”  _ he moans, helpless. 

“ _ Yes,”  _ his captain replies, fierce. “You’re _ours_ _ ,  _ Sanji.” 

And the world dissolves into nothing but slick heat, overwhelming sensation, and the knowledge that he is— 

— _ wanted. _

Sanji comes  _ sobbing.  _

* * *

Eventually, Zoro grumbles something about dry cum and steals away for a shower, leaving Luffy and Sanji curled together on the bed. 

To Luffy’s utmost shock, Sanji—Sanji who always smells like aftershave and cigarettes _ , _ whose hair is always soft and perfect and never shiny with grease, who  _ hates  _ mess and once chased Luffy out of the kitchen for spilling a dish of salsa all over his apron _ — _ _declined_ to join Zoro. But, well. Luffy’s not exactly complaining about it. There's something so _good_ about just laying here with a sex-messy Sanji. 

They're laying side by side in the bed, legs tangled up with each other. Their thighs are particularly sticky with sweat and drying lubricant where they touch. Once all the blushing and stammering was done, Sanji had reluctantly settled, content to let Luffy cling to his side like a giant rubber leech. He’s smoking, blowing perfect rings up at the ceiling just because he can. The smell of the tobacco mixes with the smell of sex blanketing the room.

_ This is what was missing,  _ Luffy thinks, sudden but absolutely certain about it once the thought comes. The otherwise wholly enjoyable smell of afterglow is made  _ perfect  _ with the addition of Sanji’s cigarettes. Complete. Like those really nice cakes that Sanji makes and spends hours decorating with bags of multi-colored frosting—they’re good without the frosting but  _ better  _ with it, the little details bringing the whole thing together. 

“Hey,” Luffy jabs at his side. 

“What?” Sanji hums, taking another slow drag. Luffy is fascinated by the sensuous curl of the smoke as it billows lazily from between Sanji’s lips—lips that he now knows the taste of. The way he cradles the cigarette between his fingers make his hands look a thousand times more graceful—hands that finally took what they wanted, pressing so gentle and tender between his lips. 

Luffy wants to kiss him but he also wants to study him, too. Wants to  _ memorize  _ the lazy, sated look on his face and the rings of smoke that drift up from his kiss-bruised lips.  For once, Sanji’s hair is fully out of his face, leaving him looking startlingly naked, even though he’s recently retrieved his shirt from the floor.

“Stop thinking so hard,” Luffy reminds him, watching a pensive look flicker across Sanji's face.

Sanji’s face is cast in dark shadows, his brow heavy and wrinkled. His eyes are still flushed red a little around the edges from crying and Luffy is transfixed by it—smudges of pink like Nami’s make-up smeared under his eyes. Luffy aches to trace their presence with his thumb, so he does. 

Sanji hums again, a thoughtful sound, only shying away from Luffy’s touch the slightest bit.  _ Progress.  _ His feet are warm against Luffy’s own, their ankles locked together under the covers. The last fading dregs of Sanji’s fancy cologne clings to the collar of his shirt as Luffy pillows his face on his shoulder.

“We’re sorry, you know. That we did this wrong.”

Sanji sighs and shifts against his side, ember flaring at the end of the cigarette held loosely between his lips. 

“‘S not your fault,” Sanji says, settling a hand in Luffy’s hair. It has no right to feel as good as it does. Then, Sanji starts to scratch a little, and Luffy’s  _ gone.  _

This is the single greatest thing on the planet (besides meat and Hat and Zoro’s kisses and fresh tangerine’s from Nami’s trees and Franky’s inventions and Brook’s voice…)

“It’s happened before,” he murmurs, voice nearly lost to Luffy through a haze of feel-good touches. On the bedside table, the cigarette goes out with a sizzle and Luffy listens to Sanji fumble one-handed for another one. 

“What has?” The fingers in his hands still before gradually resuming their trek across the sensitive skin of his scalp. 

Another sigh and then, Sanji gestures vaguely with his brand-new cigarette in the air, cheeks turning that same shade of pink that lingers around his eyes. “You know…  _ that.  _ The… crying, I guess.”

Luffy sits up on his elbows, peering down at the other man. Sanji’s face is pinched, expression muddled and aching. 

“When?” Because if this was happening and Luffy  _ missed it— _ if his  _ crew _ , his  _ nakama,  _ his  _ Sanji  _ was crying like that and he  _ missed it— _ he… he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but it’ll be  _ something.  _

Sanji exhales a steady stream of smoke through his lips and answers with another sigh, “When I was a kid, it happened a lot.”

“All kids cry,” Luffy points out. He cried  _ all the time.  _ It drove Ace and Sabo both a little bit crazy _.  _

Sanji shakes his head, his hair making a soft shuffling sound across the sheets. “Not like that. And… during those two years, sometimes. Iva-san said it was normal. Stress or anxiety or something. I don’t know.” 

Luffy frowns at the particularly dismissive tone Sanji takes. As if it doesn’t matter. As if  _ his cook  _ suffering like this for so long is  _ fine  _ and  _ normal. _

“Iva-san is really smart,” Luffy says deliberately. 

_ We fucked up,  _ Zoro’s voice echoed in his mind. 

_ Careful,  _ Luffy thinks—a reminder for himself. 

Sanji scoffs, but doesn’t comment more. 

There’s a thump and a muffled curse before the door to the bathroom flings open and Zoro comes hopping out on one foot. “Shit, stupid counter,” he grumbles.

A burst of laughter erupts from Sanji. “I thought you said missing an eye wasn’t a big deal?” he taunts, sounding a bit more like himself. 

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“You stubbed your  _ toe.  _ Honestly, I’m surprised you don’t go falling down flights of stairs more often, what with having  _ no depth perception.”  _

“I have  _ plenty,  _ you dick.”

Luffy catches Sanji’s eye wandering because he’s doing the exact same thing, truthfully. Zoro’s hair is damp and slightly longer than usual, sticking wet to the skin behind and around his ears. He’s only got a pair of soft pants on and nothing else. Every inch of his sun-dark skin is as enticing as any plate of meat. The ease and the power with which he carries himself makes something inside Luffy  _ sing.  _

Sanji is looking, too, until he suddenly isn’t. 

“Sanji,” Luffy prompts, prodding at his legs with his feet. “You said you’d tell us if you wanted to touch.” 

The air in the room shifts. Sanji sucks in an abrupt breath through his teeth, almost a wince. 

“Luffy,” Zoro begins, and  _ oh  _ how Luffy loves him but at the same time, he’s so _very_ sick of tiptoeing around this. 

“I’m not pushing,” Luffy tells him, voice unyielding. Zoro gives him a  _ look _ that very much says,  _ you are, though  _ to which Luffy repeats, “I’m  _ not.”  _

“Whatever, just get over here already, moss-head,” Sanji grouses. His face is slightly pink and he’s looking anywhere besides  _ at Zoro.  _

Zoro bares his teeth. “I don’t take orders.” 

A beat passes. 

Luffy and Sanji erupt into laughter at the same time, side by side and nearly flush together, tripping over giggles and desperate, heaving gasps.

“Oh god, that’s the  _ dumbest  _ thing I’ve ever heard you say—” Sanji wheezes. 

Zoro blushes a bit in the way that he always does when he’s embarrassed. It softens out his edges. No longer the demon of East Blue but something that’s just  _ Luffy’s.  _

At his side, Sanji’s laughter gets shrill and cackling in that special way that means he isn't holding anything back.

_ Well. And Sanji’s, too.  _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is the horniest thing I have ever written in my entire life.  
> Obligatory link to my tumblr [here](https://trixree.tumblr.com/)


End file.
